


A Series of Related Events

by Whispering_Sumire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adorable, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alpha Derek Hale, Angst and Feels, BAMF Pack, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Communication, Derek Hale Needs To Use His Words, Derek Hale Needs a Hug, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Everyone Needs Therapy, Explicit Consent, Falling In Love, Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Grandmothers, Grief/Mourning, Hale Family Feels, Heartfelt Conversations, Honesty, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Laughter, Living Together, M/M, Multi, POV Derek, Pack Dad Derek Hale, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, Panic Attacks, Poignant, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puppy Piles, References to Shakespeare, Romantic Fluff, Sass, Scott is a Good Friend, Snow Day, Snowball Fight, Sourwolf Derek Hale, The Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Yuletide (mentioned), derek hale gets a hug, disgustingly domestic, everyone gets therapy, liberal use of quotes, sick day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21577687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: Stiles is dancing.He's nearly knee-deep in the freeze of it all, a paper bag of roasted peanuts and jellybeans swaying precariously in his hand, lines from the play and laughter spilling from his sugar-salted lips,dancing.Derek's lungs, twinkling from the sharp, crisp air, forget altogether how breathing's supposed to get done. His heart seems to decide to pick up the slack, and the butterflies in his belly are honestly so juvenile he's a little surprised at himself.Stiles twirls with the wind and the snowflakes and the height of his damnable ridiculousness, sunshine eyes bursting supernovas when he smiles, all that bright in him just pouring recklessly out. Like it's infinite, endless, like he doesn't have to worry about reaching the bottom and coming up empty. And the fresh snow soaks up all that lovely, reflects it back until even the stars can only stare on in jealousy.Derek wants to tell him he's being an idiot, wants to tell him he's going to catch a fucking cold, wants to wrap his loose scarf more warmly around his bare, cinnamon-speckled sweet-cream throat.But he's still trying to remember how to breathe.[Or: That one with a whole fucking lot of xmas fluff, honestly]
Relationships: Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Derek Hale & Everyone, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Everyone & Everyone, Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes
Comments: 17
Kudos: 177
Collections: 12 Days of Sterek





	1. Prologue, or, On the Foundations of a Pack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only chapter that will be in past-tense! Also, this fic is me trying to get my groove back after basically a year of being barely able to function, so I went pretty easy on myself—most of the chapters are just a bunch of ficlets threaded through with loose vaguely character-driven/pack oriented thread, please forgive me my short-comings. All that being said, I really enjoyed writing this piece and I hope you enjoy reading it!! xoxoxo, ❀❀❀
> 
> ((Also, also, almost all of this fic is Derek's POV? Which is unusual for me, because I am both normally Stiles-oriented and a POV hopper? lol, let's see how this goes.
> 
> Content Warning :: Therapy happens, but it is kept vague to a certain degree because I am not entirely confident in my ability to write such a thing, moreover, I am not a therapist. Just assume that they're talking through their issues and becoming healthier over the course of time?
> 
> Trigger Warnings :: Gerard aftershocks, dealings with canon trauma, dealings with (mostly) canon miscommunication and mistakes (people did stupid shit and it needs to be _discussed)_ , Kate Argent was a thing, the Hale fire was a thing.

After the Kanima - Gerard, Jackson, every painstaking mistake - Stiles came to the abandoned Railroad Depot with Scott. 

"We need to figure this shit out," he'd said, "because everything that happened was monumentally fucked up and it can't happen again." And then he and Scott had dragged everyone to the animal clinic because they needed a _responsible adult._

Being forced into communicating was uncomfortable. Derek had almost abandoned the effort, the lingering ghost of Scott's bruising grip around the back of his neck, forcing him under Gerard's arm, blood oozing toxic against his tongue, _violating._ But then Scott had begun explaining a shark smile and a knife crudely twisting inside his gut in a full parking lot, and Deaton was asking him in soothingly neutral tones if that made him feel as if perhaps Gerard could get away with anything, if he was scared, what hiding the pain and the blood and the fear from his mother was like. 

Scott had explained seeing the Kanima holding up his mother, its' slick, scaly tail wrapped around her throat. The visceral terror and helplessness he'd felt when Gerard threatened her, when he threatened Stiles and Isaac and Allison, when, every time Scott did not listen, he _followed through_ with those threats.

Twice, Scott had said. Twice, he'd almost told Derek. Derek, who had stood by when Peter had dug his claws into the back of Scott's neck to squeeze the twisted, writhing memories of the fire into his mind.

"I get where you were coming from," he'd said. "Coz Peter was all that was left of your family. And I know, I _know_ how horrified that whole thing made you. I could see it on your face." He'd taken a slow breath. "It doesn't change that it happened. It doesn't change that it was awful and I'm still trying to forgive you for it. I _do_ want to forgive you for it.

"And you tried to kill Lydia, right? Okay, an-and even if she had been the Kanima, even if she _had been,_ she was obviously innocent—at least consciously, and we could've—. I don't know! Told her, or, or _something._ She's our friend, okay, and you tried to kill her, but I still thought that maybe... Because it always seemed like you were at least _trying._ To keep the town safe, if nothing else, or else why would you care? But every time I tried to talk to you, _really_ talk to you, you just—brushed me off. And maybe you thought you were protecting me, but that's not good enough.

__

"It wasn't enough for me to try trusting you, to hope that you wouldn't clue Gerard in or get my Mom, or my brother, or my girlfriend hurt, killed, or worse. That you could be my Alpha?

"I mean, five months ago we were strangers, and now what? I place my life and my family and everything else in your hands because you're the _Alpha?_ Like that means anything? I didn't even _want_ to be this; I didn't want this power or this responsibility or this-this _life—"_ Stiles had squeezed Scott's arm and Scott had inhaled deeply through his nose, calming down from the rush. 

"But I've got it," he'd said. "This is where I'm at, now, because of a freaking mass-murderer with the same red eyes as you and the same stupid drive for Pack—. You know, I would've probably gone my whole life thinking that you were going around offering the Bite to people because you were a power-hungry douchebag if it hadn't been for Stiles doing a bunch of research and telling me that the Alpha-spark can't stabilize without three packbonds to latch onto. Something you never told me.

"Something you might _never_ have told me?" He'd said, with an oddly pleading edge. "And if _our_ communication is that bad, after everything we went through with Peter and Kate, then how was I supposed to believe that they-" he'd gestured at Erica, Isaac, and Boyd- "were giving their informed consent? _Realistically_ informed?"

 _"That_ was why you were trying to keep Boyd from getting the Bite?" Erica had asked, stunned.

 _"Yes,"_ Scott had gusted out, the word stained with the relief of catharsis.

"Oh," She'd said, and then began talking about how Scott was kind of right. 

When she'd detailed how he'd asked her to "be the token girl in his boyband," Derek had winced. Shame is an emotion he has learned to live with, but what he did to Erica elicits something almost worse. It'd been like donning Kate's skin, a bone-itching, maggots squirming through his veins, stomach curdling revulsion, but he'd needed her and he'd done it on the hazy high of fresh, gory Alphahood.

Stiles had walked right over to him and pinched him on the arm, _hard,_ "You've gotta be kidding me," pinch, "you stupid," pinch, "thoughtless," pinch, "goddamn," pinch, and so on. Derek hadn't stopped him. He _agreed_ with him, and that was the least he should suffer for what he had done to her, how he had done it.

Deaton's face, usually stone or jovial or placid and never shocked by anything, had gone slightly cramped.

"What?" Erica had said, nonplussed.

"Um," Scott had begun. "It just, uh. It sounds really..."

"Rapey!" Stiles had shrieked with a flail in her direction, "It sounds rapey as fuck and I can't _believe_ that's how he proposed the fucking Bite to you—stranger danger, Erica! No one let her anywhere near nondescript vans advertising free candy, or _ice cream trucks,_ or," he'd continued, the pinching resuming.

"What he said," Scott had cut in as Stiles had ranted on in the background.

"Oh," she'd said again, and an hour was thereby spent unravelling what was going on in Derek's head - a whole lotta stupid, Stiles informed him, after the pinching had stopped - and just exactly how much he needed therapy. How much they _all_ did.

"Don't knock it 'till you've tried it," Stiles had told Isaac firmly when he'd tried to be dismissively caustic of the idea.

Deaton had informed them of a contact he'd thought could help them, one who could be there within the week and who would be willing to do group sessions as well as one-on-one. Said contact was privy to the supernatural, which had derailed Stiles into wondering just how _many_ people were in-the-know and how many of which Deaton knew. 

Deaton had smiled enigmatically beneath the barrage of questions and revealed nothing.

Stiles had cuffed Derek lightly on their way out of the clinic and said, "Don't do that."

Derek had frowned at him.

"I can see it in your eyebrows, dude; you're going through everything that was said in there and all the shit that you did wrong and—. Don't, okay? You fucked up, right?" He'd waited. Derek hadn't said anything. He'd pinched him again, insistent, _"Right?"_

"Yes," Derek had snapped, bearing his teeth.

"Okay, so do better."

Derek had blinked.

"You're their Alpha," Stiles had said with a somewhat wry smile. "I don't know _exactly_ what that means, but I know enough. I know more than Scott, at least. You're the Alpha, Derek, you're _their_ Alpha. Admit that you fucked up, apologize, and _do better."_

And Stiles had walked away, back to his jeep, back to his brother, giving Erica and Boyd a ride to Boyd's Nan's. Isaac had disappeared directly after their congregation had begun to disperse, Derek wouldn't see him again for a little under a week.

Derek had breathed and breathed and _breathed._

* * *

It was their third group session before Derek uttered a word about what actually happened between him and Kate, and his fourth private session before he started untangling everything he felt toward Scott and what had happened with Gerard.

It was their fifth group session before Stiles actually confessed what Gerard had done to _him,_ what it had been like to drag Erica and Boyd's unconscious bodies from that Gods forsaken garage. Derek doesn't think he's ever seen someone _weep_ before, not like Scott wept, then.

It'd started to seem, at some point, like each session was tailored toward making them all cry.

There came a day, though - after Derek had apologized for his failings as an Alpha and the adult in the room, and Scott had apologized for using Derek the way he did, and Erica had apologized for bashing Stiles over the head with Roscoe's carburettor, and Stiles had apologized for some of the more reckless things he'd done in the name of being Scott's "Yoda" and for saying some unintentionally cruel things to Isaac - when they started to actually feel like _Pack._

It had taken the summer, and a few months more, but.

They were whole.

Their packbonds all bright shimmer, woven snugly together.

There were still hurdles to get over, and it's not like they'd been _fixed,_ necessarily - they all still had their own quirks and reservations and idiosyncrasies - but their relationships were healthier, kinder, deeper.

Therapy was _helping._

And so, Derek grudgingly had to admit, was Chris, who Scott and Stiles had roped into aiding in the Pack's training—because, while Derek had a handle on the wolf side of it, Chris was the one who actually knew hand-to-hand combat, weapons, self-defence, and they needed _both._

Slowly, ever so slowly, Allison began folding herself into their numbers, incrementally joining in some of their activities, walking on eggshells around Scott, and carefully avoiding Derek and Erica until Stiles and Erica got impatient with her and Derek's half tentative, half combative attitudes toward each other, and dragged her to one of their group sessions. At which point Scott had been encouraged to tell her the truth about her mother and Allison had broken down to reveal yet more atrocities committed by Gerard.

"Scott," Stiles had said, frosty, "whenever we find that guy can we _please_ kill him?"

Scott, who'd looked very much like he wanted to say yes, glanced at Allison.

Allison had sniffled, wiped angrily at her cheeks, and said, "Go for it. You have my blessing." She'd gotten up, "I need to talk to my Dad, but... same time next week?"

"Derek?" Charlotte had prompted, handing the choice over to him.

Derek had nodded once, sharp. Allison had nodded in turn, grave, vaguely grateful, and stalked out of the room.

She hasn't missed a session since.

Lydia, on the other hand, drops in on them unannounced whenever she pleases. She does not ask for permission, but she does help Stiles research and is apparently teaching him Latin and Archaic Latin. She has plans to abscond to London on scholarship soon, although she and Jackson are broken up—they're still friends, she points out when the topic is brought up. They're still friends and he still needs someone, especially now that he's some wolvish Kanima hybrid who couldn't even find a Pack on his own out there, didn't even realize he'd _need_ to.

That she is a Banshee is something she'd learned when Peter had dropped in on her unannounced to explain how he'd been able to haunt her into preforming what amounted to necromancy on him and how she had _actually_ called Jackson back to himself. She'd pepper-sprayed him in the face, and while she has no idea why he'd decided to confess all that to her in the first place, his information did check out.

Apparently, there's a Coven in London with two Banshees amongst their ranks, which is all the more reason for her to go. Besides, the persona she's built up here just doesn't fit anymore, is brittle and cracking at the edges. She's done playing a part; she wants to start over, and she wants to help Jackson.

Somehow, the whole Pack ends up both going to her Goodbye Party and waiting with her at the airport until she boards her flight. Derek... still doesn't know how she convinced everyone.

Peter is gone. Peter's _been_ gone since the Kanima. Derek doubts he'll ever see him again.


	2. Curtains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning :: Canon-typical violence/fighting and very, _very_ light gore

"Make a list," Stiles says, handing him a notebook.

Derek scowls, uncomprehending.

Stiles huffs at him, impatient.

"You're one of the book-wormiest book-worms I know, and your place is _boring,_ okay? We've been hounding at you to get curtains forever—I'm glad you finally caved, man. Wall-length windows with absolutely nothing to reduce the insane natural lighting? Like, ever?" Stiles squints at him like he's trying to gauge his intelligence level, before tutting despairingly and shaking his head, "You're not even a morning person, you hate the sunlight, what is wrong with you? Not the point-" he flaps his hands dismissively- "the point is: you finally got them, and they're plain as hell. Just like everything else in this stupid, spartan, hipster-chic loft, and I am _not_ cool with that."

"Hipster-chic," Derek repeats, flat, and Stiles flails around wildly at their surroundings as if to say they speak for themselves. They don't. "Fuck you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just—write down some of your favourite quotes. Or authors. Or _something._ Make a list, Der," Stiles does a spirit-fingers voila gesture at the art-supplies he's pulled out of his backpack, "because I've got permanent markers and I'm not afraid to use 'em."

Derek raises an eyebrow, somewhere between exasperated, annoyed, and vaguely amused.

"Seriously. If you don't, I'll take it as unspoken permission to do whatever the hell I want. Do you _want_ chibi-anime renditions of your sour face all over these things? Or a bunch of puppies? Maybe some _strawberries—"_

Derek makes the damn list.

* * *

Derek isn't used to people sharing his space, but he isn't unused to it either.

Isaac is living with Scott, now, but he, Erica, and Boyd visit the loft often. Stiles, Scott, and Allison visit less frequently. Chris hasn't once set foot in this place since Derek got it, electing to meet them by the Hale house or wherever they end up when it's too cold to train outside. (Not that Derek, himself, would care about a drop in temperature, but Scott's puppy-dog eyes and Stiles and Erica's complaining is best avoided for the sake of his sanity.)

He wouldn't say he's uncomfortable, only, this is the third afternoon in a row Stiles has spent... _here._ Awkward might be the better word.

He isn't used to a quiet Stiles. Yet the silence is almost deafening as Stiles works on the curtains, one at a time, painstakingly meticulous. He outlines the words, fills them in, outlines the words, fills them in, adding flourishes along the way. The style is somewhere between art deco and free-flow calligraphy.

Derek reads and watches him. The watching isn't even intentional exactly, just that there's someone in Derek's Den and they're Pack and his wolf is demanding. _Hypervigilance_ he's been told. It makes sense. Sometimes he wishes he could turn it off. Sometimes he's glad it's there and terrified that if it ever goes away he won't be alert when the danger _does_ come, and they'll all be dead in the lurch because he wasn't paying attention.

He has a TV (although he doesn't have cable). He didn't buy it and no one would tell him where it came from but it's old and bulky and smells like disinfectant and mouldy cotton. It sits on an entertainment centre against the wall about four to six feet in front of the coffee table and sofa.

Derek's never turned it on.

Maybe he should. At this rate, the white noise would be comforting.

He also has a record player (no records), and an ancient boom-box that requires double d batteries (which he does not own).

He's re-reading the same paragraph for the fifteenth time when Stiles says, "You've got a funny sense of humour."

Derek turns to stare at him with a raised eyebrow and a look that's half, _I know,_ half, _What the fuck are you talking about?_

Stiles taps a line of writing on an open page of The Quote Book, as he calls it, and declaims in a very sarcastic British lilt, ""To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows."" Stiles whacks the page with the end of his pen.

Derek shrugs.

Stiles squints at him for a second that seems to distort itself into hours. The sunlight shining through his growing hair is echoed by the liquid golden dawn in his eyes. "It is, isn't it?" he murmurs, finally. "You trying to be funny."

Derek smirks at him. Stiles looks startled, and then laughter works its way up his throat, trickles past his teeth despite his best efforts to hold it back, echoes through the too-open, too-empty space when it finally leaps free of him.

The silence _broken._

Birds couldn't sing sweeter songs if they tried.

That quote gets the biggest mural of them all, has a huge space in the centre of two curtains dedicated to it. When they're finished and put up, Stiles studies his reaction, vaguely guarded, nerves all threaded through with hope.

"I like them," Derek says softly, sincerely, and Stiles' grin is a wide, _wide,_ triumphant thing.

Erica cackles when she sees it, the letters all riddled with geriatric peoples of indeterminate sex twirling their canes at tap-dancing wolves and lizards; Boyd's eyes shine with laughter. Lydia demands pictures the second one of them sends texts about it. Scott says, "I'm confused," of it at the same time Isaac says, "Accurate."

Over half of the Pack begins telling Stiles his talent is something to be proud of, something he could _go_ places with, and Stiles always flushes with pleasure at their encouragement before telling them firmly and assuredly that art's just a hobby, not what he wants to do with his life.

"What _do_ you want to do with your life?" Isaac asks once.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Stiles says with a sharp smile, and walks away.

* * *

"Goddamn mother—"

The giant wasp monster with a human face and spider-web hair and a mouth that opens impossibly wide - capable-of-consuming-two-story-houses-in-one-gulp wide - hisses at Erica as she swings the hook of a fire poker into its side. Silvery refuse oozes from the wound, and she's forced to leave her spur of the moment weapon lodged there in order to get the hell out of dodge before the Queen wasp can literally, _literally_ bite her head off for the offence.

"—fucking—"

Stiles has two worryingly large shards of glass protruding out of his profusely bleeding calf, but he's too busy attacking the swarm of regular-bug-sized human-faced wasp monsters with fire-extinguisher foam to care, and Scott and Isaac are both simultaneously trying to clog all the drains and board all the windows in order to stem the tide because these thing's numbers are _endless._

"—applesauce shit—"

 _"Applesauce?"_ Allison hollers incredulously from where she's sling-shotting firework snaps into the bulk of the horde.

"It is a totally valid curse, okay!" Stiles shouts back, stomping a grounded insect-thing with his bad leg and screaming through his teeth at the pain.

Boyd is huddled in the kitchen, on the phone with Lydia, trying to figure out what these things are and exactly how to stop them. Derek is with Erica, succeeding in completely disabling the Queen's wings and gouging out one of her eyes. They don't seem to have a healing factor, but the Queen _just won't die_ and the sheer number of her children makes the battle seem fruitless and exhaustive.

They've been at this for _hours._

Derek's pretty sure most, if not all of the furniture is a lost cause.

Then Boyd is hurtling out of the kitchen, ripping the curtains down, soaking them in pots full of some indistinguishable slush that smells nauseatingly dreadful, and tossing them Derek's way with a, "Noose, incoming."

Derek takes the hint and uses the fire-poker as a stepping-stool to vault onto the Queen's back. The Queen wails, jerking sharply to the side and exorcist-twisting her head around with a nasty snarl. Erica bum-rushes her belly like a tornado of claws and fangs, which distracts the Queen long enough for Derek to wrap the sopping-wet curtain around her nearly non-existant neck and tie the noose.

Two seconds later the Queen and all her children drop like puppets with their strings cut. Erica howls furiously beneath the Queen's mass and shreds her way out from under crumpled insect legs with a look of pure indignant wrath on her exertion flushed face.

"What," she pants, "the everloving _fuck."_

"There's an Evil Sorcerer in town," Boyd tells her. "According to Lydia."

"An Evil Sorcerer?" Stiles laments, "Why do our lives read like a bad Disney/Brothers Grimm crossover? Why?"

"I think the better question," says Allison, "is where are they and why are they trying to kill us?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, collapsing back onto a floor riddled with monstrous wasp corpses, "you might be right."

Scott tears down another curtain, to the winces of many, in order to apply some hasty first-aid on his brother, meanwhile Derek prioritises.

"Scott, treat him as best you can and then take him to Deaton-" "I'm _fine."_ \- "Allison, call your father and tell him what's going on, Boyd, see if Lydia can dig up any more intel, Erica and Isaac, you take south, I'll take north, when you two are done on the phone look around for any newcomers or strange occurrences in town. Reconvene at Deaton's in three."

"Barring any discount Disney Villains," Stiles breathes giddily before promptly passing out.

"Go," Derek barks at Scott, and he goes.

* * *

They find the Sorceress two hours into the search. More accurately, Allison and Boyd find her. They chase her northward and, with Derek's help, incapacitate her enough to take her to Deaton's and figure out what to do with her from there.

Deaton, in his usual enigmatic manner, takes one look at the hog-tied witch and tells them to put her in the backroom, he'll deal with her.

Stiles, who is awake now and delirious from pain medication, leg thoroughly stitched and bandaged, spends fifteen minutes laughing at their dishevelled appearances. "You look like you wrestled with a sentient _sewer,_ oh my God," he wheezes.

"He's a little loopy," Scott says, apologetically.

Derek heaves out a sigh.

Hours later, all his Betas passed out in a tangle of bodies on uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting room, Deaton doing what he will with the Sorceress, Derek sits by Stiles' side and holds his hand, a throbbing pain riding up his arms through sickly ichor veins.

The lattice of Stiles' palm is more weathered than it should be; Derek catches his fingertips on the bone-jut rough of Stiles' knuckles, squeezes just to feel Stiles' long, thin fingers twitch sleepily. He can remember rainbows of pens twirling, water cupped in the curve dripping, the glinting violence of a steel bat's handle peeking. Fleeting things held in these hands, beloved things, _tremendous_ things.

Stiles flutters his eyes open out of a doze, rain-streaked lamplight slanting through the window to glitter in his irises. "Mm, huza-wha?" There's drool flaked on the corner of his mouth and he smells like chemicals and morning-breath.

Derek snorts. "Sleep," he says, soft.

"Ech," Stiles waves him off, sniffles a deep inhale, smacks his lips with a groan. "Time is it?"

"Late."

"You are... unhelpful. Did you know that?" Stiles says, words breathy and light with drowsiness.

"So I've been told," Derek says, dry.

Stiles squints through the twilight dim until his sight catches on the bloodied curtain in the bin. He sighs whiningly, "Aw, _man._ I guess it was good while it lasted." His head flops back onto the pillow with a resigned, sulking air, the movement jerking their hands slightly. He blinks, seems to register what's happening, and then frowns faintly down at where their hands are joined.

"Pain drain?" He asks. 

Derek hums an affirmative. 

Stiles huffs, regards him carefully, "You haven't gotten any sleep at all, have you?"

Derek raises an eyebrow, keeps his silence. 

Stiles' lips quirk up a little helplessly, and he taps the space between Derek's eyebrows with the crook of two fingers, "Idiot... Thank you."

(Deaton never does tell them what he ended up doing with that Sorceress.

And despite the Pack stealthily refurnishing the loft with discount, hand-me-down fixtures, despite Derek replacing the broken windows and sweeping up the glass, the carcasses, he never does get new curtains. Maybe he means to, once or twice, but he never does. The Betas don't, either.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly. I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows." —Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
> 
> _plays i want to hold your hand by the beatles_


	3. Band-aids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning :: _In which they very explicitly do the do._ It will later be implied that Stiles is eighteen, but ages and timelines have been kept nebulous, so believe what you want my loves.

Stiles' hands work through Derek's hair, untangle shards of glass from the strands, drenching it in water until the liquid swirling down the drain goes from rust to clear.

It was supposed to be a milk run, yet another indescribable abnormity in Beacon Hills. They knew what it was and how to kill it, they just weren't expecting it to come up on them that quickly, making Derek swerve and catapulting him through the windshield.

By the time it was dead, unable to hurt anyone ever again, Stiles was on a tirade about seatbelts and idiots and how he was definitely one of them. Derek still can't understand why he cares so much—Derek's a _werewolf,_ he's already healed, the pain already faded, it shouldn't matter anymore.

But, here they are, with him sat in a chair pulled up against the kitchen sink, head tilted back so Stiles can carefully, carefully, tend to him, picking at the glass and cautiously making sure none of it moves in a way that could cause harm. It makes no sense, but it feels good; the swish-rain of the sprayer, the knead-brush of Stiles' tender, gentling hands, the intimacy, their packbond vibrating with contentment, Derek's wolf, underneath that, rumbling something gruntled and vaguely enchanted.

The last time someone washed his hair he was a kid. 

He's pretty sure it was summer, then, pressed under some heatwave that the air conditioner gave up trying to cool. He'd ended up crowded in the bath with four other kids and two bags of ice from the convenience store dumped into the tub. It was all bright-loud, wild chaos, Mikey sobbing that it was still too hot as Cora and Gabriel took up water-pistols against everybody, Laura trying to keep everything under control and Thomas wondering loudly, over and over again, when mom was coming home, shouting that he was going to tell on her for doing such a bad job at being in charge, which had Laura turning away from the ice-bath to charge after him. She'd chased him, buck naked, through the house all the way out into the Preserve.

Nothing like this.

Everything is hushed, and the darkness is thick, creeping quietly through velveteen shadows, building up in corners and reimagining the architecture of the loft, turning half of it into something charcoal-void, unknown. Stiles is humming softly, creating a delicate, slightly out-of-tune melody for the creaking pipes and sloshing water to sing to. The air is crisp, sharp, rarefied, circulating from the open window, all starlit twilight and midnight rain.

Peaceful.

Distantly nostalgiac.

Hardly painful at all.

Nothing he's used to.

When Stiles is done, he shuts off the water and, before Derek can protest, plasters a band-aid on his right temple, where one of the deeper gashes had been. Derek shifts upright, now he can, and touches the useless thing, raising his eyebrows in lightly sardonic question.

"It's symbolic," Stiles tells him, a challenge teasing the edges of his tone.

Derek cocks his head and narrows his eyes, because, _why?_ And, also, he doesn't really want to wear some strange band-aid that's probably got the most obscure possible design on it - this is _Stiles,_ after all - when he doesn't even need it, would _never_ need it.

Stiles' eyebrows furrow into a slight frown as he takes Derek's hand away from the band-aid and smooths it down with fingers that are... trembling? 

"It's to remind me—. Just." He bends down to press their foreheads together, his scent swelling with something foreign, a little bit like fear, a little bit like devastation. "Just keep it on for a while, okay?"

Derek makes a small, slightly confused, considering noise in the back of his throat, but, after a moment of their breath blending together, after Stiles' touch becomes more solid, less frangible, Derek nods. He still doesn't understand, but he nods, and Stiles huffs something a little too soaked in melancholy to be called a laugh before drawing away, eyes glittering with a misty burst of immaculate, bewildering sunlight.

A faint, hindered smile, a soft, strangely hallowed, "Thank you," and then his rough-hewn hands are slipping away from Derek's cheeks as he moves to leave.

But Derek doesn't want him to.

Something deeply primal and startling surges through him, cries out at the idea of being here alone, of Stiles gone from him. All it takes is this breathless, half-wild moment for him to cave under the immeasurable weight of a craving he didn't even know he had; it's practically sub-conscious, to reach out and capture Stiles' wrist, to stay him.

Derek stands as Stiles turns back, confused, and slowly pulls him closer. Stiles comes, easy as anything, his sunrise eyes fissures revealing the depths of his soul, too open, too overwhelmingly willing to sink into Derek's, to show him _everything_.

It's terrifying.

Dizzying.

They're slow-dance flush with each other now, Derek's fingertips sliding beneath Stiles' jaw, a satisfied growl cresting his chest when Stiles tilts his head up submissively. Derek grazes his nose down the line of Stiles' pulse, sinking into the intoxicating scent of sticky mango and vibrant spices. He sweeps his lips across milky skin, relishes in the familiar heartbeat skipping, in the shaky breath, in the way Stiles' hands twitch against his hips and his fingernails dig in. Derek inhales, deep and greedy, the fruity syrup is getting heavier, thicker, _richer,_ and the spice has become so intense it makes Derek's eyes sting, saliva pool in his mouth.

 _"Stiles."_ It is a prayer for mercy as much as it's something obscene, filthy. The taste of it on his tongue is almost nauseatingly sweet.

"Yes," Stiles breathes. "Fuck. Yes."

Derek bears down with blunt, human teeth. An oddly gentle bite, for all that he's trembling under the effort of his restraint. A wolven kiss. There is no translation for this, no language that could mould around the meaning or the emotion.

He has found belonging, home, in Stiles, wishes for Stiles to find the same in him. A reverence offered freely. Pack. They are both alive, both here, together.

_Breathe. I've got you._

It's deeper than an I love you.

It's more than he's given anyone, and he'd had no idea that he _could_ give it—no idea that he wanted to, needed to, that it would _feel_ like this.

_We belong to each other._

_Mine._

_Yours._

_**Breathe.** _

He laves over the indent his teeth made, mouths the goosebumps that trail his tongue. Stiles shivers, trembles all over helplessly, overwhelmed. His pants are high-pitched whimpery, sugar-crusted, vulnerable.

Derek chases his kisses up Stiles' thundering pulse, nibbles on his earlobe, noses at his jaw, caresses lips across his fever-flushed cheeks, brushes them fleetingly against his mouth. Stiles mewls something needy, urgent, tries to tug Derek in for more, but Derek plays hard to get, teases at the idea of a real kiss with his breath, with the tiniest, butterfly-flutter glimpses of their lips together, never letting Stiles' part against his, never taking advantage of how much Stiles obviously wants him to.

Tears of yearning frustration begin to dew those long, silken eyelashes.

Derek kisses them away, eager for their taste on his tongue.

Stiles' breath is shallow, dripping with need, and he's grinding intoxicatingly against Derek in hiccupping, helpless little thrusts, his dick a hard, pressing issue. "Please," he begs, a hushed, lilting whine that cracks down the middle with something almost pitiful, _"Derek."_

Hearing his name like that, shivery with lust and want, shatters whatever self-control he had left, _consumes_ him, and he snags Stiles' bottom lip between his teeth, savouring the gasp of surprise, the way Stiles jerks before he _melts_ against him. Derek groans shakily when he finally dives inside the silk-wet warmth of his mouth. The noise Stiles makes sounds ripped out of him, wretched with gratitude and relief and desire.

Derek backs him up against the wall, slots his thigh between Stiles', growls into the whiskey-scorch heat of their kiss when he feels Stiles' muscles contract, feels him strain against his body's need to rut, to seek that unfathomable release.

Stiles deepens the kiss, makes it a searing, mind-bending affair, until Derek's knees are weak and the only thing he understands is their mouths together, his blood sizzled down to pulsating magma boiling beneath his skin, their bodies and heartbeats becoming impossible to distinguish. Sly, nimble fingers snap the button of his jeans open, rip the zipper down, shaking with want as they gently take hold of Derek's cock, tremblingly stroke.

Derek pulls back enough to suck in a staggered breath, eyes locking with Stiles', burning in the tenaciously capricious sunlight of them.

"I want to taste you," Stiles whispers. "Let me taste you?"

Derek exhales slowly, trying to reign himself in, the hot coil in his belly tight and aching. He rubs their noses together, kisses chaste and gentle, nods his consent.

Stiles inhales, a short, jittery thing, shudders, and then slides down the wall to kneel in front of Derek, pushing his pants down with a breathless sort of anticipation. Derek's muscles clench, sparks of pleasure and urgency rushing through him where Stiles' hands rub up and down his legs, splay across his abdomen, exploring, enjoying.

A sharp, explosive ecstasy laces up his spine when Stiles' soft, pink tongue drifts up his slit, lapping at precum. Derek hisses through his teeth, and Stiles _smiles_ up at him. His belly coils tighter, the ache in his groin getting more insistent.

"Gods," Derek huffs, more to himself than anything, he barely even realizes he's saying it. "Gods, you're beautiful."

Stiles' whole face blooms, cheeks become rose gardens, lips slightly parted, eyebrows curved up, and sand-swept dawn eyes adorably wide. "You—you are, too," he stutters. Blinks. "I mean, you're gorgeous. Totally gorgeous. I can't even _believe_ how gorgeous you are. Like, Adonis would weep—"

"Stiles," Derek says, indulgent laughter sewn into his voice despite himself. "Baby," smile still lingering underneath the scorch of desperate lust. "Please," smoke, deep, roasting on the pyre of his need.

Stiles keens at the sound, and is spurred into fervent motion, swallowing Derek down, enveloping live-wire with velveteen pressure.

Derek releases a half-animal cry, one of his hands planted on the wall for stability as the other feathers through Stiles' hair. He breathes out harshly and curses when Stiles' tongue slips under foreskin, dances playfully.

He's clumsy with inexperience, but Derek doesn't care, might enjoy entirely too much that no one else has taught him this. He helps him along with gnarring coos, chastising tugs, and ragged asides. Stiles soaks it up like a sponge, runs with it until he's exceeding every expectation, until Derek's rocking into him with a throbbing, liquid-fire urgency.

With instruction and intent, Stiles relaxes the muscles in his throat, lets Derek guide him all the way down, nose nuzzled into pubic hair, lips wrapped around the base, only gagging slightly before he regulates himself. Derek grunts a moan that edges toward howl, hunched over with one hand grasped bruisingly on Stiles' shoulder and the other clawed into his hair. Stiles swallows, throat flexing fluidly around the tip of Derek's cock, tongue pressing up against him, and Derek shudders, knees practically giving out, that persistent ache all-encompassing.

"Stiles," he wails, a warning before he forgets himself entirely.

Stiles' dewy eyes gaze up at him, gone supplicating and a vaguely serene as he eases himself back enough to breathe, before urging Derek to thrust deeper and deeper, harder and harder, until Stiles' throat is fluctuating around him again, until orgasm is crashing over him in rolling waves and he's spilling down Stiles' throat, barely refraining from collapsing over him as he convulses.

At the same time, Stiles quivers and chokes on a mewl before the scent of his ejaculate starts permeating the air, making Derek groan a savagely satisfied laugh.

He pulls out as fast as he can while still maintaining gentle, and barely lets Stiles swallow the rest of his cum, let alone catch a desperate, strangled breath, before he's falling to his knees and capturing that mouth in his, asking, a little mad with it, "You came, baby? Just from that?"

Stiles giggles, this strung-out chirp of half-giddy repletion. "Yeah," he sounds fucking _destroyed._

"Gods," Derek nearly whines, rubbing their noses together, raining kiss after kiss on him. "Gods, _Stiles."_

"Did you like that? Hmm, big guy?" Stiles asks, kneading his fingers through Derek's scruff with a sweet as sin, fuck-wrecked smile that gets under Derek's skin in every possible way and pushes about a thousand buttons he didn't even know he had until he saw it.

"Yeah," Derek admits, a little more gravely than he'd meant, and Stiles' smile settles into something smaller, _brighter_ —it lights up the whole godsdamned room, soaking the steady, incremental yolky-pastels of daybreak in a dazzling gold that is awing in its' satiated joy. Kissing him, then, is an inevitability, and Stiles chuckles into it, still tasting of cum and sweat and pure debauchery.

(... The Sheriff is going to slaughter him if he ever finds out, isn't he?)

Derek gets up, loose-limbed and spent, languorously searching for a washcloth to dampen and a change of pants so Stiles can tidy himself without having to move, which, by the look of him all sprawled out, lazily leaning against the lower cabinet on the floor, he has absolutely no intention of doing any time soon, anyway.

"You know we're gonna have to talk about this, right?" Stiles wonders after Derek's handed him everything. 

Derek lets out a long breath as he eases himself down beside Stiles, hooking his elbows around his spread knees and linking his fingers loosely together. He watches the sunrise leak slowly in from the window, pooling across the floor in an inescapable tide that makes stubborn, clinging puddles of all the shadows that had lived there before.

"I want to be with you," Derek tells him quietly, sincerely, feeling Stiles' gaze focus patiently but piercingly on him. "Only you."

"... And how long have you wanted that?" Stiles asks, just as quiet, genuine, something sugary and a little effervescent riding in it. Derek casts a side-long glance his way, not entirely sure how to answer that.

"Honestly?" He says, raising his eyebrows with a half shrug. Then, after another long moment of companionable silence, shaking his head, faint and wonder-hushed, "I don't know."

Stiles nods lightly, lets himself sway sideways until his head is pillowed on Derek's shoulder as he lethargically begins pulling off his soiled pants, sighing an, "Okay."

Simple as that.

And the new day begins.

(He forgets about the band-aid and doesn't remember it until Erica, Boyd, and Isaac come over and - each in their own way - laugh at him. It's a scooby-doo band-aid, he learns eventually.

It peels off on its own weeks later.)


	4. Snow Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my God, they're such dorks, I can't even
> 
> Trigger Warning :: Canon traumas/The Hale fire & Kate Argent are things

Soft, downy ice curtains their surroundings in intricate veils of ivory. They're walking back from the Community Theatre's rendition of Midsummer Night's Dream, which they went to half out of boredom and half because Derek already had tickets to go. They'd teased him about it for exactly five minutes before getting tickets for themselves—at a discount, because Stiles knew the person manning the admissions booth, or else knew some secret of theirs that they didn't want to be spammed online.

The snow had accumulated mountainously while they were watching the play. Walking home was the only option left to them if they didn't want to be stranded in the Theatre with everyone else, which they didn't.

Stiles is dancing. 

He's nearly knee-deep in the freeze of it all, a paper bag of roasted peanuts and jellybeans swaying precariously in his hand, lines from the play and laughter spilling from his sugar-salted lips, _dancing._

Derek's lungs, twinkling from the sharp, crisp air, forget altogether how _breathing's_ supposed to get done. His heart seems to decide to pick up the slack, and the butterflies in his belly are honestly so juvenile he's a little surprised at himself.

Stiles twirls with the wind and the snowflakes and the height of his damnable ridiculousness, sunshine eyes bursting supernovas when he _smiles,_ all that bright in him just pouring recklessly out. Like it's infinite, endless, like he doesn't have to worry about reaching the bottom and coming up empty. And the fresh, liquid moon sparkling snow soaks up all that lovely, reflects it back until even the stars can only stare on in jealousy.

Derek wants to tell him he's being an idiot, wants to tell him he's going to catch a fucking cold, wants to wrap his loose scarf more warmly around his bare, cinnamon-speckled sweet-cream throat. 

But he's still trying to remember how to breathe.

* * *

They haven't told the Pack yet. Derek thinks Stiles is waiting for him to bring it up.

The thing is, he's not even trying to keep it a secret. They spend more time together than they ever used to, Stiles is very generous with physical affection, and they're intimate enough for the lover's scent to have sunk in. They smell too much of one another, at this point, for the Betas to tell them apart.

Scott is the only one who doesn't seem confused by this, but Derek holds no illusions that Stiles hasn't confided in him. Would never have asked him to keep something like this from his brother, anyway.

So they aren't hiding it, but they aren't flaunting it either. Whatever this is, it's new, they're still figuring it out, and... it's _theirs._

Right now? It's theirs.

* * *

With raspberry fingertips and Rudolph noses, they all topple like avalanche snowdrift into a 7-Eleven that's just past the halfway point, sick with laughter that interrupts all capacity for speech, limbs tangling so that they have to desperately reorganize themselves or else endanger the aisles of cheap commerciality with their clumsy bodies, which only makes them laugh harder, heaving out wheezy wind-chime clamour.

"Are... are y'all alright?" Asks the lady behind the register. She's laughing, too, though, infected by their mirth and their spectacle and the slight nervousness they've inspired in her.

"Fine," Allison breathes, half-giggle, but even that one word starts her up again, and any recovery she'd made is lost.

They take their time to browse and warm up in the convenience store, get hot cocoa and coffee in paper cups that they clutch to their chests covetously, stand shivering under the heater, smile and nod at the lady who looks at them with some mixture of pity and dubious humour. Derek finally gets the chance to pull Stiles' hood up and wrap his scarf over it, knotted under his chin.

Stiles raises his eyebrows at him, lips twitching, "Are you worried about me?"

Derek scowls and fusses with Stiles' mittens. Stiles gives into the grin teasing at his lips, eyes flickering candlelight full of teasing fondness.

"Hey, moonbeam," he says. 

Derek stills, glares at him, Stiles looks seconds away from coming down with those delirium giggles again, _"Moonbeam?"_

His tongue is peeking between his teeth, all that freckled skin around his eyes scrunched up bambi-cute, dimples coming out to play. It's ridiculous. _He's_ ridiculous. "I got you chocolate," he snickers, poking Derek's nose with a corner of the foil-wrapped candy bar.

"Uh-huh," Derek says, very, very flatly, and Stiles breaks. Howls with laughter that hunches him over and makes him crouch down to stabilize himself with a hand on the floor.

"Are y'all drunk?" The lady finally decides to ask.

"No," Derek sighs, accepting the chocolate from his lover and rolling his eyes. "If only they had that as an excuse."

* * *

They stop again at a deserted park for the sake of building a snowman, despite the fact that they're all tempting frost-bite at this point. The wolves he can understand, running hotter and less capable of injury, but Stiles and Allison?

Still, they're all working together, goading him into helping, and then they're determined to make snowmen to a man—that is, one snowman per packmate.

Derek takes a break when rolling the snowman's midsection devolves into wrestling. He'll help them find a nose for it, or something. Maybe he'll just rip a button off his jacket. Pure whim inspires him to take out the chocolate Stiles gave him, unwrap it, and snap a piece off to taste. It's rich, melt-in-your-mouth and crushed blackberries, _not_ strawberries, thank—

Stiles kisses him.

Out of nowhere, smoothly cupping Derek's cheek to turn his head and pull him in with the taste of that gifted dessert still sticky on his tongue. Derek doesn't deny him, shares the flavour, gathers him closer to feel his chill-tempered, snowmelt soaked warmth. To _feel_ him. Gods, to feel him.

Mist curls past his teeth like smoke from a sparkler sputtered to dark when he pulls away, smiling that godsdamned _smile,_ and all Derek can think is: _This kid really is gonna kill me, isn't he?_

And all Derek can think is: _I love him. I **love** him._

Except there's a dramatic gasp by the slide matched with a heartbeat suddenly speeding up and when Derek turns to look he sees Erica with her jaw dropped and her eyes comically wide. Stiles follows his gaze and says, "Damn."

No one else is paying attention. No one else has noticed. Derek has Stiles wrapped up in an amorous embrace and Erica's maybe five feet away from them with a devilish glee beginning to dawn in her honeycomb eyes.

She points at them like a kid on the godsdamned playground - which, now he's thinking about it, is _exactly_ what she is, pigtails and all - and inhales deep to shout when Stiles pulls away from Derek, and slugs a clump of snow directly in her face.

"Gah!" She says.

"What?" Stiles says, cupping a hand around his ear, "What was that?"

"Oh-ha-ho, Batman," she chuckles with bloodthirsty ferocity, roughing her mittened hand down her face and flicking the offending snow back to the ground, "you are _so—"_

A hastily clapped together snowball hits her dead in the chest, "Sorry, couldn't hear you," and she lets out an inarticulate howl of rage before diving to the ground for her own ammunition.

"Snowball fight!" Scott shouts, delighted, having finally clued in, and the war begins.

* * *

The snow has finally stopped falling. It's dark, well and truly dark, no ambient dusk, the streetlamps have all gone out, the stars are left singing at the inattentive clouds, not even a sliver of moon to be seen.

They've all collapsed in a puddle on the floor of the loft, exhausted. The dust-burnt rusting smell of the heater on full blast tickles their noses. Snow-crunchy, soaked through clothes are all shoved haphazardly in the dryer or else hung up on the clothes-line inside awaiting their turn, metronome dripping all their bad decisions onto the wood below. 

They're all in their underwear, snuggled up to one another, oversized duvets draping over their bodies.

Allison and Stiles get to bathe first, return to the pile with flushed skin smelling of warmth and soap. There's some grumbling to be had over who gets the privilege of going next before they finally settle on Erica and Boyd, and so on, until, heat and home slinking through their marrow, dream draws them into its pleasant depths.

* * *

_"I saw mommy kissin' Santa Clause~♫"_

Derek blinks his eyes open, only to immediately scrunch them shut against the offending sun with a stifled groan.

_"Underneath the mistletoe last night~♫"_

He feels Stiles stir against him, hears a muffled curse, and then startles right into full consciousness when his lover catapults himself from his side. Erica yelps with half-alarmed laughter as she rolls out of the way of Stiles' attack, where Scott grunts because Stiles just somersault-tumbled into him, all jangling limbs and confusion. That grunt morphs into a winced shout when Stiles uses his gut as a launchpad to heave himself after Erica again.

 _"She didn't see me creepin',"_ Erica continues to half-sing very breathlessly as she leads Stiles on a merry chase throughout the loft. It's obvious she doesn't quite know the lyrics after that, but she goes back and repeats the start like a joyfully skipping record.

"I think he broke a rib," Scott wheezes plaintively, and Allison, who's watching the show with the look of someone who wishes they'd thought to bring popcorn, pats him in absent-minded conciliation.

Isaac tosses a pillow at the scramble-sprinting two before stuffing his own pillow over his head, growling, "Too early, it's too _fucking_ early."

Derek agrees, vehemently, and decides to have mercy on him. On all of them. The moment Stiles manoeuvres his pursuit close enough, Derek yanks him out of the game with an arm around the waist. Stiles barely catches himself over Derek's supine form on his hands and knees, panting, strands of sleep-mussed hair sweeping down from his temple like drizzled honey, liquid sunlight erupting from his widened eyes. Surprised and soft, wondering, "Derek?"

It's ingraining itself in his foundations he realizes, almost suddenly, how much emotion he holds for Stiles.

After... after the fire, he couldn't contemplate a future for himself. What future was there for someone who'd caused the deaths of his whole family? What future was there for someone whose whole life had burned away?

He is sure he only continued for Laura's sake, so that she wouldn't lose anyone else by his fault. But then she was gone, too, and all that was left to him was wrath and vengeance and smoke. Guesswork, from there, pushing through another second until a minute had passed, an hour, a day.

But it arrests him, now, that he can see himself old. He can see himself with snowdrop frosted hair, he can see himself stooping as valleys and ravines begin marinating on his weary face, he can see the cracks that might form from frowning, smiling, laughing; he can see a sterling crowned Stiles, his Pack all aged and creaking; he can see cradles full of their tiny, soft-skinned, milky perfumed babies. It all unravels fluidly and freely and _real_ before him. So vivid and true that he _believes_ it.

He believes it.

"For you, in my respect," Derek whispers, dead flowers crinkle-rasping up past his teeth to spill their wilted petals in a halo around him. A hush descends, a sweeping attention that holds them mute. "Are _all the world._ Then how can it be said that I am alone," he lifts a gentle hand to tuck Stiles' hair behind his ear. Stiles leans into the touch, lips lightly parted around shallow breath, eyes wide and wet and too bright, too full. Always so blinding, Stiles' eyes. "When all the world is here to look on me?"

Stiles laughs, some sweet spoonful of crystal sugar poured over rainwashed pavement type thing. Stiles laughs and bends down to kiss him like he can't even help it.

Scott and Allison erupt in raucous celebratory whooping and clapping, Isaac snaps at the world at large to spontaneously develop a mute button, Boyd says, with the deep solemnity of someone who has been waiting for an eternity's eternity, "Finally," and Erica starts squealing.

Literally squealing.

Stiles breaks from the kiss to hide his embarrassed, half-resigned giggling into Derek's neck. "Man, I totally forgot we weren't alone," he murmurs, breath a warm mist against Derek's skin, low enough to remain secret.

Erica bursts into carolling that only gains coherency when the rest of the Pack begins joining in. Stiles groans, loud and mournful. Isaac gives up sleeping in favour of teasing.

Stiles sighs explosively, sits up so he's straddling Derek, tilts his head up to the sky and, no thought for the scarlet splashing across his cheeks and trickling down his throat, starts shout-singing along with them. Allison and Scott can barely keep up for their laughter. Erica decides it's some sort of competition, now, and ratchets her volume up higher than Stiles' for the sheer principle of it. Boyd maintains his nearly professional buttery baritone throughout, but his expression is so intensely deadpan that it's impossible to take him seriously. And Derek doesn't sing.

Derek doesn't sing, but he laughs. From his gut, full, free, and godsdamned _happy,_ he laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, by whoever
> 
> "For you, in my respect, are all the world. Then how can it be said that I am alone, when all the world is here to look on me?" —A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
> 
> ((Stiles got 'Moonbeam' from the play as well, ❀❀❀


	5. The Sheriff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guys, this one's much heavier than all the other chapters before it, so buckle up, heed the trigger warnings, and stay safe, <3 <3 <3
> 
> Content Warning: The Sheriff isn't the best parent or person in this fic, emetophobes beware there's a sick person being sick
> 
> Trigger Warnings :: (Implied) Child Neglect/Neglect, Alcohol Abuse, Panic Attacks—(refer to spoilery triggers in the end notes)

Stiles is sick. "Just the common cold," he says laughingly of Derek's fussing, "don't freak out."

Derek isn't sure what to do with a sick human. He's never been _around_ one, never cared this deeply about one, and he discovers that the part of him that snarls protectively or quails at the idea of Stiles hurting burbles to life within him even when the hurt is as supposedly minutia as this. _Just the common cold,_ he tries to soothe himself while he's at Walgreens texting Stiles about what medicine and drinks he's supposed to be buying.

It doesn't really help.

* * *

Derek understands that the Sheriff is working and that Stiles is old enough that taking a day off just because he's sick - when he can effectively take care of himself - isn't absolutely necessary. But then it's nearing midnight and the Sheriff has yet to come home.

Stiles' temperature has been around 100 to 102 all day, he's barely been able to keep anything down and has been struggling to breathe intermittently. He's mostly been sleeping and drinking tea and taking the medicine he's supposedly supposed to take when he's supposed to take it, between vomiting and restlessly trying to watch movies that he can't focus on. He's miserable, and Derek has never been so fervently grateful that he can't get sick because he's sure Stiles wouldn't allow himself to be so clingy if Derek could.

So he's holding Stiles, pressed up against his jittery volcanic body, soaking a washcloth in a bowl of ice-water to lave over Stiles' face when he says, "You lied to me, didn't you."

It's not a question.

"'bout what?" Stiles mumbles, wincing away from the cold because his body's convinced that it's frigid when it's actually burning up. He digs his hands up under Derek's shirt, nestles them against his heart only to trace them across his abs a second later, scratch them up and down his flank. It's nothing sexual, just a restlessness and a need.

He wants to be close. But no closeness seems close enough.

"Common cold."

"Mmm," Stiles hums, nails cutting deeper into Derek's skin as he fights not to jerk away from the cloth, shivering harshly. "I get sick like this every year. I'll be fine," dismissive, final.

"Stiles," Derek says. But he doesn't push, not right now, he couldn't. There's this bilious swooping in his heart to watch Stiles struggle in such a way.

_I'm scared for you. I want you to be okay._

There is no monster, no wound, no real pain for him to leech, nothing definitive that he feels he can do to be of use. Even this, right now, is an idea that came from a quick search on his phone and a desperate urge to _do something._ But what if he isn't helping? What if he's making it worse?

Every year, Stiles said, he deals with this.

And Derek has the strangest disconnect because not only does he not know what to do, _he's_ never dealt with this. He has been shot, electrified, stabbed, and tortured. But he's never been sick.

* * *

The Pack all come bustling in after school with more medicine, drinks, light foods to eat, and a home remedy from Boyd's Nan. Only Scott and Boyd use the door. Allison wears a black mask over her mouth with white cat whiskers embroidered on it.

They're respectfully quiet and Stiles sleeps through most of their visit, but they all give Derek sound advice, even whilst teasing him for being so worried. During their second round of rummy, Scott says, "This happens every winter, man. I don't know if it's always like this, though, I was never allowed anywhere near him when he was sick."

Derek quirks a brow questioningly.

Scott shrugs. "I had asthma. _Really bad_ asthma, dude, getting sick was a lot worse for me. Like, life-threateningly worse."

"Same," Erica chimes in. "Well, not exactly the same, but epilepsy and the flu do not a healthy match make. This season was always a shit-show for me."

It's not exactly his world-view tilting on its axis, but it is similar.

Stiles wakes up just long enough to demand a hug from everybody but Allison - since she could actually _catch_ whatever he has if they're not careful - thank them for their gifts, and shoo them off to go do healthy people things, like homework and flirting and researching whatever it is that's eviscerating cats and leaving them on innocent civilians' doorsteps.

The Pack leaves, however reluctantly, but they keep up a steady stream of texts well into the night.

* * *

It's three in the morning, and Stiles is sitting in front of the toilet with a bowl of ice in his lap. Derek's holding his hand. Losing physical contact, at this point, is not an option.

Tears are streaming down his pallid cheeks, his lower lip trembling, his adam's apple bobbing with dozens of thick swallows. He's too weak to clench his fingers around Derek's, too shaky, but every once in awhile he'll press his fingertips down hard enough to feel bone.

Derek breathes with him, deep inhale, deep exhale. If Stiles stops following along Derek says, "breathe," as he's exhaling. Stiles has had three panic attacks in the last hour, the only reason he's managed to give is that he doesn't want to throw up again.

But he'd tried to eat some crackers and now they're here.

"Breathe," Derek says, and Stiles does his very best, through the mucous and the strangling tickle in his throat and the sheer terror. The scent of his fear is pervasive, heartbreaking.

"Breathe," Derek says, but Stiles' face crumples and his whole body jerks toward the toilet. Derek holds his hair away from his face, rubs his back as soothingly as he can, making quiet hushing sounds because Stiles is sobbing, now, heaving and hyperventilating at once.

He gets it out, eventually. They work together to gain his breath back. Derek helps him wash his face.

"I love you," Stiles says, the first time he's ever said it, as Derek walks him back to his room. His eyes are hazy with exhaustion and illness and anxiety, but they are still small suns plucked out of the very fabric of the universe to rest in his irises. Divinity. "I love you so much it kind of hurts sometimes."

Derek presses their foreheads together, breathes with him, "I love you, too," he says, because Gods know it's true. Maybe the truest thing he's ever held in his mouth. "I love you, Stiles."

And then they walk to the bed and they try to watch a movie that Stiles can't quite focus on, Stiles' arms tucked under Derek's shirt and their legs tangled together.

* * *

The Sheriff comes home an hour before noon. He drinks three cups of what Derek will later discover is cheap whiskey. He goes to bed.

He does not check on his son.

Stiles is sick for four days and the Sheriff only looks in on him directly before he goes to work, making sure his temperature is going down and that he's behaving, resting properly, drinking enough fluids. One of those times, he's drunk. He never discovers Derek.

* * *

"You can't lie to me, Stiles," Derek tells him with an edge to his voice, when Stiles is finally healthy and calm and has spent the last fifteen minutes proving it by spinning around in his desk chair and hypothesizing what could possibly be gutting small prey animals - as the perpetrators have incorporated squirrels and rabbits into their repertoire - and leaving them on random people's doorsteps.

Stiles stutters to a halt and stares for a second. Then, haltingly, "Is this about me telling you I had a cold?"

Derek presses his lips into a thin line, brows drawn down.

"Words, moonbeam," Stiles says, fidgeting nervously. "Use your words, or else I'll fuck this up, and I really don't wanna fuck this up. I mean, am I already fucking this up?" His voice goes a little high and strained at the end.

Derek frowns, "You aren't... _fucking this up."_

"But you're mad," Stiles says, like it's a perfectly logical leap to make. Maybe it is for him.

"I'm not mad, Stiles. And even if I was. Even if something you did irritated or upset me, it's not—" if there's anything Derek wishes he had retained from childhood it's fucking coherency. He's not good at this, at being the one talking, explaining. He can bark orders when the need arises, and he has the general capacity for _speech,_ but that's about it. "It's just _life,"_ he settles for. It doesn't match what he means, exactly, but he hopes Stiles can figure it out.

He knows the tangible weight and feel of the emotion, he has a collegiate vocabulary, but he is absolutely screwed when it comes to communication, articulation, charisma, all of it. He can fake pretty well on the spot, but now isn't the time nor the person.

"Life," Stiles says very slowly, beautiful brain whirring behind those luminescent eyes, "that we're living together."

Derek nods, three shades shy of being emphatic about it. Thank the Gods his lover's a genius.

"So we figure it out together. Even if you're pissed at me, or I'm pissed at you, or someone _does_ fuck up, we're not fucking _this_ up, we're just... living. And we're living life together...?"

_"Yes."_

"Okay," he says waveringly, before, stronger, "I mean, okay. But... you're _not_ mad?" Nervous, again. He picks at his fingers when he's nervous, scratches his knuckles raw and squeezes his wrists compulsively. He'll touch his neck, sometimes, like he's checking for a pulse.

"No," Derek says. "Frustrated, maybe. I was—." He wonders if he's too proud to admit this. Decides that if he is he doesn't fucking want to be, "I was _scared._ I love you, Stiles, and I've never—. We were all wolves."

Stiles sucks in a shocked breath, eyes wide. "What? Have you, like, never seen someone get sick before?"

"Injured," Derek tells him, "badly. But not sick."

"So you have _no_ experience with the common cold?" Stiles asks, suddenly all intrigue and interrogation with a vague sort of levity underlining it.

"Stiles," Derek says, fond despite himself, and Stiles clears his throat softly, leans back in his chair, brought down to earth again. "Please. Don't lie to me. This, I—. If you're not alright, I want to know. If you have to keep something from me for whatever reason, tell me that, but don't tell me a lie."

"Okay. Yeah, I—uh. I can do that," he bobs his head a little, stands, and sort of slumps against Derek's chest like all the energy's been completely sapped out of him. "I'm sorry I lied, especially over something so stupid."

Derek hooks his chin over Stiles' shoulder and presses closer, "Forgiven."

Stiles melts. "Love you, Der."

Derek lets the tension drain out of him, smiles, relieved to have gotten it off his chest, to already be moving past it. "I love you, too, baby."

* * *

"You need to quit _lying_ to me, Stiles."

The sentiment is almost the same. An insidious ghost of Derek's words two weeks ago, spoken with real heat and impatient frustration. Derek stills completely, even his breath halts.

He is in the beginnings of getting used to spending hours of his day here. On the weekends and after school, the Pack tends toward the loft, but recently, on days when everyone else decides to go home instead of staying the night, Derek will drive Stiles back and stay with him (occasionally, Scott will join them). In part because he's still shaken from Stiles taking ill, in part because he simply wants to be _around_ him.

Stiles' anxiety, Derek has learned, is a well-hidden, ever-present thing. He still says, _"I used to have panic attacks after my mom died,"_ which is not technically a lie. But it's not the truth, either. To Derek, he says, _"I just don't want to bring attention to it. There's more important stuff going on and, honestly? It's private. You know, and Scott knows. The others will probably find out eventually. That's enough for me."_

Derek has also learned that the Sheriff is almost never home. When he is he's often drunk or on his way to being drunk. He and Stiles don't really talk—he makes sure Stiles wakes up for school if he's home, he asks if Stiles has eaten, if he's behaving, and moves on unless Stiles initiates more himself. Mostly, Stiles doesn't.

Derek barely hides his continued presence. The Sheriff has never noticed.

"I've found you at the sight of three crime-scenes - and don't think I don't know about you and that group of friends you've been hanging out with lately being seen all around town with _Derek Hale_ \- and now this? You're telling me I'm just supposed to _believe_ that you, what? _Chanced upon_ all the evidence I needed to apprehend this guy?"

"Does it really matter if figuring it out was an accident or not?"

"Yes! Stiles, you couldn't have gotten this evidence legally, and it's _dangerous._ This is _my_ job, not yours. You are supposed to be a high school student, focusing on your homework and what you're gonna do about college, not about some—"

"Are you _kidding_ me? I'm helping _you,_ you get that, right? I've _been_ helping you! I've been helping you since I was seven years old, Dad! So, it was okay when I went through case-files with you because you were too drunk to figure it out yourself, too drunk to feed yourself, to _clothe_ yourself, to make sure you got to fucking work on time smelling like anything _but_ booze, but it's not okay for me to do anything now? Why?"

"I was _grieving,_ Stiles. How dare you use that against me."

"No, I know you were grieving. You're still grieving. You never _stopped_ grieving."

"... This isn't about me, Stiles. This is about you and how you can never seem to tell me the goddamn truth, how you're always ending up involved in things that you shouldn't be. I don't- I don't want to see you with those kids again."

"... _What."_

"I think they're a bad influence on you. And Derek Hale is six years older than you, there is absolutely no reason he should be keeping company with a bunch of teenagers. This stops, Stiles, and it stops now."

"No."

"Son—"

"No. What're you going to do, Dad? And I mean, seriously think about it for a second. I'm in charge of the bills, the food, and the house. You _rarely_ see me, even when there's no _reason_ for you to be working overtime or sleeping at the station. Unless you're wearing a wire, you have no evidence that I was the one who turned that guy in and no proof of any other supposedly illegal thing I may or may not have done, so. How do you enforce this new rule? Coz Scott isn't going to help, he likes them just as much as I do, they're our _friends._ Derek's our friend. So _what are you going to do?"_

"If you really feel that way, why don't you just leave?"

"... What?"

"Obviously you don't think I'm taking care of you. It seems like you're under some delusion that you could live all by yourself and be perfectly fine, right? You're eighteen, Stiles. I won't stop you. But mark my words, when you figure out that you can't handle it out there on your own, there'll be some new rules in this goddamn house when you come back, you hear me?"

Stiles' heart is stutter-skipping. He doesn't answer. He storms up the stairs, into his room, and slams the door. He sounds like he's being strangled, little wheezing breaths hissing sharp and quick through his grinding teeth. Saltwater jewels his eyelashes, dashes rivers down the banks of his candied-cherry cheeks. The scent of him all mouldy mangos and ghost peppers in wooden milk-crates tossed out to a wind-torn sea.

Derek moves toward him immediately, but Stiles puts his arms up, staying, shaking his head, whimpering whines rabbiting up his tightened throat. "Breathe," Derek says, quiet, soothing, slow on the exhale, like Stiles taught him. Deep inhale, _"Breathe."_

Stiles trembles down to the floor. Derek kneels down with him, but doesn't touch, will keep his space until Stiles needs something different. Furious is an entirely underwhelming word for what he's feeling right now, but it will pass, and he can't let himself focus on it.

"Breathe," the word is scarred through with chainsaw-shred, gnarled past wolven fangs, but there's not much he can do about that right now.

Stiles' first few attempts are shuddery and littered with hiccoughing gasps, but his lungs catch their glimpses of air, incrementally billow full with it, brine-stained as it is. "I n-need to- I need to ge-get outta here, I can't—"

"Okay," Derek murmurs hushingly. "Can I touch you?"

Stiles moans something quiet and despondent, but he nods so Derek scoops him up in his arms and carries him out the window - which requires a decent amount of cooperation and limpet-clinging on Stiles' part, but they manage - to the car. "You want to go to Scott? Or the loft?"

"Loft," Stiles says firmly. He sniffles, digs his nails between the bones of his fingers, keeps his breath as carefully measured as he can. "This is so fucked up."

Derek hesitates, but, ultimately, if it could help, "Do you want to tell him? The truth?"

"God, no," Stiles laughs, bitter and shaky. "This wasn't—. I mean, it was. Maybe it was about all the secrets I've been keeping from him. But it was more than that. I don't—. I can't think about it right now, okay? Let's just- let's just go home and watch stupid fucking period dramas and cuddle."

"Alright," Derek agrees easily, taking one of Stiles' hands in his and squeezing. _I'm here. We're safe. It's gonna be okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery Trigger Warnings :: Getting kicked out by parental figure at eighteen


	6. Living Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that I'm letting time be super nebulous for my own purposes and enjoyment, don't think too hard about how long winter's supposed to be and we'll be fine, ;)
> 
> Trigger Warning :: (Implied) Child Neglect/Neglect

Stiles leaves the toilet seat up.

Maybe it's because Derek has, most of his life, lived with women, or maybe it's because he was raised with _manners,_ but it is by far one of the most _frustrating_ things about living with him. 

It takes three months of 'nagging' and an earful from Erica before he's trained out of the habit, although he still slips up sometimes.

* * *

There are a handful of old ladies Stiles plays bridge with on alternating Wednesdays. There's a chess table under a pergola in that obscure park that's halfway up a small mountain hike where Stiles meets a veteran who drives a taxi, smokes cigars, complains about his joints and the economy and healthcare, and takes off his prosthetic whenever he sits down. There's the park that's on their way home from 7-Eleven, thick with frostbitten kids whenever school lets out, all resolved to have their hour playing in the snow, and every single one of them seems to know Stiles by name. So do most of their parents.

(All of this, in retrospect, makes an infinite amount of sense.)

The old ladies are terrible gossips, prattling on about every little new occurrence; they are undaunted and unsurprised and amused about everything. Stiles has never once won a game. They call Derek _Stiles' young man,_ and are very determined not to call him anything else. They fuss and they coo and they spill information like broken dams.

The taxi driver won't talk about anything unless Stiles brings him a box of doughnuts and a cigar. He thinks Stiles is probably a secret agent for the CIA or the Mafia ("Man, do they recruit young these days," he'll lament gruffly, and Stiles will laugh at him). He's assumed Derek is Stiles' charge, and that Stiles must've really fucked up to be stuck on babysitting duty, especially babysitting someone with such a sour face. "Isn't he bad for business? You've lost at least 30% of your charm, kid, him standin' behind you like a goddamned homicidal shadow." Stiles very rarely loses their chess games.

The children invite Stiles into their games, beg him to come play, or else to help them down because they've gotten stuck and don't want to be teased, or else could he tell them stories, or else— The children's parents ask if he has any updates for them on whatever's going on now, has the dangerous vandal been apprehended, is he sure, are their children safe again.

There are calls, off and on, from various deputies either checking up, wanting to chat, or wanting to snarkily ask if he's done anything illegal lately, maybe harrassed dispatch to the ends of their sanity. They don't talk about Stiles and the Sheriff's falling out, but their concern and curiosity and indignation on his behalf is obvious.

Derek begins to wonder if the only reason Sheriff Stilinski got voted in was because of his son. Begins to wonder how on earth he got this godsdamned lucky. Begins to wonder if you ever _stop_ falling in love with someone, or if it just gets deeper and vaster with every passing second.

* * *

Settling the chores involved a long, exhaustive discussion because, if Derek let him, Stiles would do all of them himself without rest or pause, which is not only unfair to Stiles in the long-run, but unhealthy. For both of them.

Derek used to have a system that was dedicated to a routine and preserving the feeling of safety and Den. Stiles used to have a system that was oriented to his house and living practically alone as a high-schooler with nobody else to rely on. Now, they had to build a new system from the ground up, one that would work for their now combined circumstances.

And change is only a little less difficult to surrender to than swallowing a cupful of smouldering industrial nails.

While some of Stiles' habits could be irritating, some of them were just uncomfortable to witness. Food, for instance; he'd make extravagant, healthy meals if there were people to feed, or else he'd _forget_ to eat, or he'd eat very minimally. Like a _rabbit._

Solutions: telling Stiles _he_ was hungry or making their next meal himself. If the Pack was there, Stiles was cooking, period. This was inarguable and a precedent already set in stone before he'd moved in.

They had to make a chart for cleaning, or else Stiles never would've let Derek clean a day again in his life, and Derek wasn't having with that. Also, the toothbrushes go in a cup, Stiles, you wash the bath-mat after you're done using it, the upstairs towels are lavender, the downstairs towels are black, and the white towels go in the closet. Please don't mix and match.

They learned to make their bed together. And they bought new pillows because Stiles was picky about that sort of thing.

The groceries are an issue they still haven't hammered out yet. Stiles' diet is very different from Derek's, and all the wolves have ravenous appetites that require some things which Stiles has only begun to get used to supplying. There is also his ADHD, which leads him to get dozens of things they didn't need and forget half of the things they did. Where Derek won't remember all of the rabbit food (it is rabbit food, no one can convince him otherwise, Stiles eats like a _bunny)_ and other necessities unless Stiles texts it to him.

Harnessing decent wi-fi and cable was... an _experience._ Stiles has absolutely no qualms shouting at a stranger through a phone for hours on end—it's not even purely aggressive shouting, sometimes it's sincerely saccharine. Derek always looks at him after, a little helpless, a little sure that his lover's gone crazy, a little bit more in love because he must _also_ be crazy.

Stiles just smiles like the sun, kisses him on the cheek, and gets exceptionally smug when whatever's wrong gets fixed in record time.

* * *

Derek and Scott have taken to taking Stiles to and from his one-on-one therapy sessions, emotional support. Stiles shakes his head at their antics but allows it without much resistance.

"The issues between me and my Dad," he says once, when he's encouraged to talk about the whole affair during a group session and he finally feels ready to, "have been going on for a long time. Keeping things from him might've made it worse, but I've been keeping things from him my _whole life._ My secrets don't begin and end with the supernatural, guys. You know me well enough to know that by now."

"You're like a scavenger hunt," Erica says. "Or a Russian Nesting Doll, or something. One second I think I've got you figured out and the next-" she slams her hands together- "wham! You're dating our Alpha and you have panic attacks and your Dad's an asshole."

That last one had become the majority opinion since Stiles had, for lack of a better term, gotten kicked out. Stiles doesn't agree with it but they're all so firm, in their defence of him and in their low regard for anyone who'd be unkind to _any_ member of their Pack, that he's given up trying to dissuade them.

He snorts and rolls his eyes, "Thanks, I guess." He flaps a hand, "What I'm trying to say is... What happened, none of it was you guys' fault. I was never going to tell him. Charlotte and I have talked about this a lot and, while I think I was trying to protect him, I also might've been trying to avoid him. There's a lot of guilt there, for me, because I assumed a whole shit-ton of responsibility that I shouldn't have and I always felt like I wasn't doing good enough. Like... _I_ wasn't good enough. After Mom died, I could never be enough for him, no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried..." Stiles sniffs and digs his knuckles into his eyes, wipes them free of whatever moisture they may have gathered with impatient movements.

"There's also all the guilt and anxiety I feel because of my Mom's death, and all the awful shit that happened leading up to it, but that is not a can of worms I feel like opening today," he finishes, grabbing Scott's hand and leaning heavily into Derek's side.

"That's good," Charlotte says with that mellifluous, babbling brook tranquillity of hers. "You shared what you could, and that's a wonderful accomplishment, Stiles. You should be very proud of yourself."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Stiles says wryly.

Charlotte smiles beguilingly, "I don't think it would be helpful to go any further than that right now, but perhaps we will get back to the topic of your Mother in our next session, hmm?" Stiles winces slightly. "Alright. Allison, you said you had some grievances to share?"

Stiles settles further against Derek, resting his head on Derek's shoulder with a sigh, and lets himself be quiet for most of the rest of the session.

* * *

Money is confusing for the first few weeks. Derek isn't lacking funds, but Stiles doesn't want to rely on that, and already feels like somewhat of a burden for just _moving in_ all of a sudden.

Derek has no idea how to explain that he would've asked him to, maybe not now, in the haze of his senior year of high school and deciding what direction he might want to go for college, but eventually. He has no idea how to explain how warm and full it makes him to _have_ Stiles here, to wake up next to him, to be drenched in his scent, his presence. 

So he just says, "I love you," and kisses him. So he just says, "Stay," and kisses him. He works him open and looks for a way to explain with his lips and his tongue and his teeth, his fingers and his spit and his cock. Rends piecemeal understanding out in mewling gasps, guttural keens, moaning cries, and gashes sprawling down his back.

"I'm here, I'm here," Stiles pants raggedly into Derek's mouth, hands splayed on either side of Derek's face, no space left betwixt their naked bodies. "I love you," Stiles says with a kiss. "I'm not going anywhere," he swears with another.

In the end, Stiles gets a part-time job at some visionary's Dive and they work out a budget that doesn't frustrate or invalidate or insult either of them.

* * *

Stiles slips on this curtseyed tone that's so sweet it's almost impossible to tell it's sarcastic. He sweeps through that restaurant like it's a five-star establishment and he's only giving that the class and weight it deserves. He sweats under chemical lights and blooms earthy perfume.

Derek thinks he might hate it there. Not necessarily the people he works with, despite Elicia hating him just for being the FNG and 'Zilla, some guy working under the table with anger issues who's obviously trying and failing to kick a drug habit, because there's Echo, too, the pregnant sixteen-year-old who lives with her boyfriend in the trailer parks on the west side and who hasn't been to school a day in her life, and the couple who owns the place, who _love_ it, who treat their workers like extended family and won't take any bullshit from their customers.

He comes home complaining about his feet and his back and whatever new drama's going on. He comes home smelling all grease and frustration cut through with the satisfaction of having _done it._ He comes home and he whines at Derek to give him a massage, which Derek will _not_ do unless Stiles takes a shower, so he whines at Derek to take a shower with him, which he does easily.

The Pack calls this their _married couple routine,_ never giving them time for anything more before they're hounding Stiles for help with their homework and food and possibly research on the monster of the week. Stiles, wet and exhausted, grants Derek a sparkling, mischievous smile, and settles in next to the rest of the Betas, already beginning to lecture them as snarkily and theatrically as he possibly can. Stiles tutors with a lot of flamboyance and flourish, Derek has noticed.

Derek sits across from him, takes his feet in his lap, and begins his own work, kneading into the muscle. They'll cook together, eat together, and since the Betas seem content to stay the night, end up asleep in slumbering knots around the couch before the movie's over.

Stiles leans over the table, an awkward contortion, to kiss him, liquid gold unravelling from his eyes like the threads of the Fates', like providence, like _this, this here, was meant to be._

"Oh, God, can you guys stop being gross for, like, one second," groans Isaac.

"C'mon," Erica says, half-leer half-coo, "I think they're _adorable."_

"I think they're worse than we were," Allison says to Scott out of the corner of her mouth.

"Only Disney movies could be worse than you were," Stiles tells them grandly, slumping back into his chair, bone-weary despite the laughter in his tone.

"Stiles," Scott says, agonizing over an english problem, "you two are _so_ much worse than a Disney movie."

Stiles throws a pen at him, tilting his head back, "Traitor."

This night, he is the first one to fall asleep. Derek carries him to the bed and tucks him in. When dinner's been eaten, they do not converge at the couch as per usual. They all amass in the bed without speaking a word, without asking permission, without hesitation.

Derek and Boyd move the old projector, set up the movie. Together, the Pack breathes, _lives._ Together, they rest, home a heavy thrum in their chests.


	7. On Homes & Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning :: (Implied) Alcohol Abuse, (Implied) Child Neglect/Neglect, Canon Traumas

Homesickness wraps barbed wire around his heart and squeezes, sprouts nostalgiac rose bushes up his throat, scrapes all his words back across his tongue and sticks them somewhere deep and fermenting in his belly.

Home is not a place, it's a people. A family. A Pack.

And Derek _has_ Pack, he has family, he has the love of his Gods forsaken life.

But he does not have his mother and father to laugh at Stiles' jokes, or to shove Derek playfully with fondness dancing in their eyes when he starts acting shy (because they'd _know,_ in the way almost no one ever does, that he _was_ being shy). He does not have Laura to take Erica and Stiles under her wing so they can all take over the world together, to ruffle Isaac's hair, to tackle Boyd into being less stoic, to gush over Scott and Allison's getting back together, to add another gag gift to Derek's book collection. He doesn't have Philip, who'd buy everyone Twizzlers, burn the cookies, and hide weed in the Christmas tree. He doesn't have Cora and Gabriel, doesn't have Mikey, Thomas, who'd all be growing into themselves, their personalities fully realized.

He doesn't even have Peter, who is alive but isn't here. Who is alive, and even if he was here _wouldn't be_ in a very visceral sense. Who is alive, without his twin sister and her daughter and everything that used to make him so beloved in Derek's memory.

* * *

"Do you regret it?" Derek asks one night.

They're at the table, drinking hot cocoa spiked with coffee. Isaac is staying at Scott's, Erica at Boyd's, and Allison's in their guestroom, not quite avoiding her father. They have tree-hunting plans tomorrow.

Stiles grimaces down at his mug. He doesn't ask Derek to clarify, he rarely needs to these days. "I don't know," he says. Takes a sip. Gazes out at the thicket of snowflakes swirling through the window, all pure white haze, bottomless, timeless. "I love my Dad. I'll always love him."

He's quiet for a long moment. Too quiet. 

Derek gets up and gathers him in his arms without warning; Stiles squeals, flails, and swats at Derek for being a caveman, but ultimately hangs on and allows himself to be carried. Derek takes them on an aimless little walk around the loft, for no other reason than to feel how gravity tucks Stiles so close and weighted, how even the magnetic force of the earth cannot pull them away from each other, how their hold is _stronger._ Stiles allows this, too, muscles going supple and pliant, sleepy. Heavy, but the good kind of heavy.

"I'll always hate him a little, too," he whispers, awfully, like he hates himself for it, and then hides his face in the side of Derek's neck.

Derek clutches him tighter, maps their dim-lit Den twice-over as Stiles' breath goes from erratic to smooth to rippling with laughter.

"Derek," he says, giggle-lilt dazy. He lifts his head up to catch Derek's eyes, looking both like he's been dragged through hell kicking and screaming and like he's reconciled with it, transcended it. Derek kisses him, because he has to, because he's so gorgeous it hurts and Derek is so overwhelmingly gone on him he's left half mad with it. Stiles smiles that smile of his as they part—Gods, he is just the anthropomorphic personification of sunshine, isn't he? Even like this, when he's crawling his way out of devastation with hands and knees scraped bloody.

"Derek," Stiles says again, mirthful-light. "Moonbeam, put me down."

Derek obliges. Or, at least, he does the moment they're in the bedroom. And then he sets about ripping all their clothes off and thoroughly debauching Stiles to point of a packful of groaning, embarrassed Betas who will have to deal with them smelling like this _all day_ tomorrow.

_Ha._

* * *

(When next Sheriff Stilinski sees his son, it's like this:

 _"Careful!"_ Stiles is calling after a girl with bouncing honey-blonde curls who's riding piggy-back on a hulking, dark-skinned boy in the middle of town square. Where the girl's grin is childish and beatific, her carriage's expression is far more grave, though the twinkle in his eyes betrays him.

"Yes, Mom!" She laughs delightedly over her shoulder, despite urging the boy to go faster through the snow-strewn crowds.

Stiles sighs and shakes his head, fondness tugging at the corners of his mouth as he turns back to the street-vendor he's buying from. Derek Hale emerges from the thronging horde to whisper something in Stiles' ear, the looming man gilded with an unbelievable softness. Stiles smiles outright, then, impish and wildly joyed, his response unheard over the trampling, cheering clamour. Derek nods, brushes a kiss across Stiles' cheek, squeezes his arm, and disappears again.

The Sheriff will see Scott, minutes later, hanging off of Allison as she and the Lahey boy pick out scarves. Scott's eyes will catch on his, and his face will eclipse with stormy, jaw-clenched darkness before he deliberately turns away.)

* * *

They'd sent a burner phone with an instructive note and fifty dollars to the head nurse at the hospital, their first Christmas after the fire.

Laura was just barely eighteen, Derek edging toward seventeen, and they weren't running from CPS anymore but they still were from Hunters. Peter was alive, hadn't been accosted or kidnapped or interfered with in any way, so they figured he'd be safe. Hoped. Prayed.

That night, they slept bewitched by the lullaby of their Uncle's breathing sung through a cheap-crackle tinny speaker.

And they hoped.

_Prayed._

* * *

The Pack sets up the tree in front of the main window in the living area.

It looks _ridiculous._

Not at first. In the beginning, it just looks like a carefully selected and meticulously put-together store-bought tree. But if Derek's Pack has formed any bad habit throughout the year, it's bringing things into the loft without asking while Derek is either not paying attention, not there, or asleep.

The vintage TV, as an example, which has, since the monstrous wasps incident, been remodelled into a bookshelf. The coffee table, the kilim beneath it, most of his dining room and kitchen—if he's being honest, he's only ever contributed the couch, his books, and his own bed.

The morning after they've set up the tree, Derek and Stiles wake up to a crushed velvet rug wrapped snug around its' base and gold berry holly garlands draped over the mahogany bookshelves. The next day, there's a candy corn garland on the vintage TV, and a set of Snoopy ornaments on the tree, then come lights, gaudy adornments, rainbow and silver tinsel, wolven figurines, faeries, a delicate pair of glass bumblebees, and on it goes.

"I think they're trying to one-up each other," Stiles says, squinting at all the pomp and glitter. He's barely awake, sleep-warm and tousled, nose scrunched up in scrutiny, his mass of hair something a mad-scientist would envy.

Derek laughs, helplessly. Whether at the tree or at his hideously adorable lover, he has no idea.

Stiles narrows his eyes at him and swats his shoulder, "What?" But Derek can't muster an answer through his mirth and Stiles slowly gets brighter and brighter, caught up in the infectious sizzle of it. "Hey, hey," he giggles, clutching Derek's shirt. "It's _our_ tree. You know what that means?"

Derek shakes his head, and Stiles' eyes gleam dangerously.

"We absolutely _have_ to win."

By Christmas Eve, the branches are indistinguishable from one another and spotting a faux pine-needle through it all has become a rare thing, indeed. It's an utter mess. Derek adores it.

* * *

(Melissa has seventeen unanswered voicemails and nearly fifty unread text messages. Two weeks ago, she'd thrown a bottle of whiskey into the sink and yelled at her best friend to go to fucking rehab through the sound of it shattering. Shrieked about every hardship she'd seen Stiles heap onto his own shoulders since he was seven years old until her throat was raw, until she hated herself for not doing, saying something sooner.

She doesn't listen to the voicemails. She won't look at the messages.

Scott's told her about what happened, and she's seen with her own two eyes how Stiles is _flourishing_ without his father. She's seen how he and his friends, how _Scott,_ have all grown and grown and grown.

Scott tells her the therapy helped. She sniffles over the ruined remnants of her friendship, ruminates on her own mistakes, and asks if he can help her make an appointment.

His smile is nothing short of miraculous in its pure, sugar-rush pride.)

* * *

They hadn't had a tree, him and Laura.

They'd had her bra, once, as an impromptu stocking. She'd hung it up from a nail in their little flat in New York and stuffed a bunch of hack sci-fi into it, written **BABY BROTHER** in big bold letters with sharpie on the fabric.

They never spoke about it, but she'd smiled sadly when she saw him reading one of them.

The last Christmas they'd spent together before she'd died, she'd bought him something special. A big, bulky thing, so badly wrapped it was almost ludicrous. Her hands had trembled as she tried to hand it to him. "I know it's nothing like—. It's not the same, and I'm not-not trying to—. Um. But I just," she'd stumbled, shaken.

For the first time, little snowflake decals had courted their windows, red and green ribbons had adorned their lamps, and candy canes hung from inexplicable overhangs. For the first time, she actually wanted to _try._ And he couldn't, Gods, he _couldn't._

Her face twisted, her hope punctured, when he hunched down, tried to hide his tears and his guilt and his _hate_ for himself from her, as he always did. She should've had presents, she should've had laughter as snow melted on her skin, as Mom and Dad hugged her and braided pinecones and thistle into her hair, she should've had her _dreams_ fulfilled. But she didn't, couldn't, would _never_ because of him.

"No," he'd said, small and torn from him, a ruinous word gored on a bloodied fish-hook.

"Oh," she'd said. Her swallow had been thick and achingly awkward, and she'd shoved the present behind her back like a child trying to hide a secret they knew their parents would disapprove of. She'd shuffled her feet, cleared her throat softly, "Why don't we—. Let's just forget it, okay?"

He'd nodded shortly, unable to force anything else past the ravaged tightness in his throat, before turning on his heel and stalking stiltedly away. He couldn't handle the pain he'd caused her, and he couldn't seem to keep himself from causing her _more._

What a shameful brother he was.

(And in New York, in a little flat he still pays for monthly, in the back of Laura's closet, as untouched as the rest of her room, lays that bulky, terribly wrapped present, waiting.)

* * *

"You okay?" Stiles asks him.

Erica's flouncing around in a skimpy Santa dress, belting along with the Christmas carols crooned over the radio. Isaac, Allison, and Scott are having an in-depth conversation about the presents beneath the tree, guessing (making wagers on) what they all are. Boyd is drinking egg-nog spiked with some formula Stiles and Lydia have finally perfected and keeping watch. Derek and Stiles have set themselves up in the kitchen to cook a Christmas Eve meal worthy of five wolves, a huntress, and a spark.

"Yes," Derek says. Shrugs. "No." Neither answer is a lie.

Stiles hums in understanding, "Anything I can do?"

It hits him not for the first time, but perhaps with more gravity and poignancy than ever before, that he isn't _alone._ He's allowed to need help, allowed to ask for it, allowed to _not_ be okay. He won't hurt anyone, by not being okay. He's not invalidating their love and care for him if he's sad, just for a moment.

And at least it is sadness and not anger. He's so tired of his anger, of the way it always turns inward and eats away at him like acid, disintegrating everything recognizable until he can almost, _almost_ see somebody else in the mirror. Somebody with a mutated wolven form and slaughter-bent Alphan eyes; somebody with cherry-gloss lips and smoke-stained fingertips.

Derek reaches out, because he wants to and because he _can._ Stiles dives into his offered embrace easily, a happy sound dancing up his throat.

"I'll tell you," Derek murmurs against the shell of Stiles' ear, _meaning_ it. "If there's anything else."

Stiles presses a smile into his shoulder, curls his arms tighter, and says, feather-soft, "Thank you for trusting me."

Derek closes his eyes, sways them to the music, and breathes.

_Keeps breathing._


	8. It's Christmas, Fam! 🎄

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning :: We respect all religions in this house, but Erica's parents happen to be doucheconoes (from their perspective) in the name of Jesus; it's not trigger warning material, nothing explicit or exceedingly terrible, just a mild dose of festive passive-aggressiveness, so, beware

Stiles pounces on him excitedly, and Derek, who had been very deeply asleep, groans.

"It's Christmas," Stiles says, overjoyed, and rainfalls kisses on his face, ignoring Derek's attempts to swat him away and return to sleep until Derek captures him full-body, rolls them over, and pins him down.

 _"Stiles,"_ he growls. But Stiles only laughs, tilting up to kiss him some more.

"Come on," Stiles urges, fireplaces crackling in his eyes, all dimples and freckles and enthusiasm. Derek finds himself biting back a smile almost against his will before he glances over at their clock, and then he's just scowling.

"Stiles. It's _5 AM."_

Stiles seems to have no qualms with this, raising his eyebrows with an, "And?"

Derek scoffs, settles the rest of his weight onto his lover, nuzzles into his throat, and determinedly closes his eyes. Stiles squirms and huffs and complains about being a squishy human trapped underneath a massive, over-muscled werewolf. Derek retaliates by biting him—gently. Stiles retaliates by sliding a hand down his boxers. Deft fingers wrapping around him to grope and caress, _play._

Derek's breath keens out of him, damp warmth between Stiles' pulse and his blunted teeth. Stiles sighs a sound of victory, or perhaps of devotion, or both intertwined when Derek thrusts against him.

"Yeah?" Stiles murmurs, low and husky as his grip grows firmer, Derek's cock plumping under his machinations, his gut clenching with that familiar lustful hunger. Derek leaves off his wolven kiss to press his lips against Stiles' before remembering abruptly that they've both just woken up.

Stiles' eyes are glittering and the set of his mouth is distinctly smug, "Want to brush our teeth first?"

If they get up to brush their teeth any hope of sleep becomes a lost cause. Stiles' hand doesn't stop its' too-dry intoxicating grind, his nails scraping deliciously up and down Derek's flank, repetitive, hypnotic. Derek glares.

"Come on," Stiles says, tone dripping sugar-water innocence as he fondles Derek's foreskin in a way that makes him jerk, hiss, _crave._

 _"Fine,"_ he bites, gravel through a wood-chipper, and Stiles grins in utterly unrepentant satisfaction.

Derek swears this kid was afraid of him once. Really, he does.

* * *

There is a moment, after they've brushed their teeth and broken each other open to cum with their names blooming raggedly on one another's lips, when Stiles takes a glass out of the cupboard and fills it with water.

Derek doesn't know what exactly about it strikes him. The way the afterglow mingles with the new-risen sun to mantle him in gorgeous golden light; that Derek had been the one to wash the dishes last night and put them away; that they still smell so strongly of each other's sex.

Something about it.

Stiles cocks his head at him when he catches him staring. "What?" he wonders with an absent smile.

That _Smile._ Unhesitant. Like Derek's done nothing and everything to deserve it.

Derek walks over to him, kisses him deep and tender, passes the emotion through their tongues and teeth, breath and spit. Words wouldn't be enough for the sentiment flutter-aching in his heart right now.

Words could never be enough.

* * *

Derek, Isaac, and Stiles are the members of the Pack without extended family.

But Stiles is a master strategist and they'd all spent most of Christmas Eve working it out together over spiked egg-nog and apple crumble, "We're Pack," he'd said imperiously, "so none of us are allowed to miss any of each other tomorrow, got it?"

Isaac is spending Christmas at the McCall's because, while he lives alternately between the loft, Scott's, and Boyd's Nan's, Stiles and Derek are embarking upon a very nomadic turn of the holiday, Boyd's family is _deliriously enormous,_ and Isaac both wanted and needed something more stable and quiet. Allison, her father, Scott's Abuela, and his father (if he shows up, which he is apparently notorious for not doing) will be attending there as well.

Erica is with her family, however begrudgingly. "They couldn't care less about what I do," Derek remembers her saying once, "unless it's Sunday morning or a Christian Holiday. I'm in my _rebellious teen phase,_ right? They don't want me anywhere near them until I figure my shit out, think I'll give my _satan cooties_ to my little brother."

Boyd is at his Nan's with a frankly offensive amount of people. Derek's family was the largest Pack on the west coast, and even _they_ would've felt overcrowded and hilariously outnumbered in the Boyd household on Christmas day.

Erica's is their first stop, since she assured them it would be the fastest visit; her family would never accept any outside company and their hospitality could only be extended to surprise guests for so long before they got fed-up enough to politely, pettily, shoo them off.

She's absolutely right, and Derek would like to state for the record that he _does not like_ Erica's parents. To be fair, he's sure they hold him and Stiles in even lower regard.

Their passive-aggressive contempt sloshes through the atmosphere like bilious sludge—this, he does not mind, because he realizes how rude they could be considered, flouncing in uninvited as they are to give Erica a load of presents and receive their own from her in turn, unwilling to leave until they've watched her open them all. The Reyes' attitude toward their daughter, however, leaves him gritting his teeth to keep the fangs at bay.

"Oh," Erica's mother says, disdain ill-hidden, "how lovely."

Erica's scent sours slightly from the pure delight it had blossomed into, but she still snuggles the hand-knitted knee-length cardigan and wine-red satin dress with velveteen floral print from Isaac to her chest. 

"I _love_ it," she says, her sincerity interwoven with determination, as if her reaction could ever be outshone by her mother's. And so it goes with the boots and socks from Scott, the ribbon chokers and Doctor Who themed charms from Allison, the Catwoman jumper and plush feline-eared ear muffs from Stiles, and the leather jacket from Derek. Then comes Boyd's present, which her parents are already turning up their noses at on principle before she's even opened it.

"Do not tear their throats out," Stiles begins chanting under his breath. "Just don't. It's a bad idea." The spicy-sweet syrupy mango of him is all cayenne-heat and ghost-pepper sting, blistering with fury. It is honestly impossible to tell if his litany is directed at himself, Derek, or both.

Erica snorts, _loudly._ Her parents look at her as if she's grown another head, and she tumbles right into full-blown laughter for it. Stiles smirks behind his phone, currently capturing clips to send to their group chat later.

Boyd's present is a hand-carved cream-coloured wolf leaping out of a tardis that Stiles helped him paint. When she sees it her laughter gets misty with surprised pleasure and adoration. "Aw," she says, a small, sugared, airy thing. _"Boyd."_

She looks so happy and overcome that it vibrates within him, sweeps his wolf up in the tide. Tears of joy, of passionate love and earnest gratitude, are not something Derek has seen in a very, very long time.

Erica sniffles, Stiles' tongue is peeking through his teeth on a scrunched up smile, and Erica's parents look vaguely baffled and very Done with all this _Highschool Drama._ They say as much, scoffing, rolling their eyes, and doing their utmost to invalidate the moment.

 _"Don't tear their throats out,"_ Stiles repeats, firm.

It isn't worthwhile to pay attention to them, for they're of no consequence, Derek thinks in solidarity, but can't help the chastising glower he sends their way.

"You guys are the best," Erica says thickly, honeycomb eyes aflutter with frisky bumblebees, eyelashes dewy, hallowed smile full of prayer. "Seriously. The freaking _best."_

"Oh, shut up," Stiles says, rushing in for a hug like he's probably been itching to for the past hour. Derek stays rigidly looming over them, inept and indecisive, until they both yank him down to their level, a peremptory bid he cannot deny.

Erica pats them both roughly on the back and scrubs her tear-stained face against their collars, a scenting comfort. "I love you guys."

"We love you, too," Stiles says, deeply warm.

"Yeah," Derek says, coarse and a little harsh, but with every ounce of meaning he possibly can.

They receive from her gifts that she tells them not to open until their next pit-stop, since her parents are nearly beyond their wits at this point.

Derek catches them asking her if she's doing drugs as they leave and growls when he realizes that this is the second fucking time in a row he's been mistaken for a drug dealer. Stiles quirks an eyebrow at him, says, "Sourwolf," with fond indulgence, and, well.

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

(Laura used to call him her _Tanngrisnir,_ after her love of Norse Mythology. Used to say he looked serial killer chic and the irony of it was he couldn't even hurt a fly, was probably too shy to do much more than _scowl_ at one if it irritated him. And he'd scowl and scowl and scowl, all the while trying to muster up the conviction to say, 'Quit it.' But in the end, he wouldn't actually do a damn thing, and everyone around him would assume he had every intention of murdering them later, all for a fly he was too clumsy to talk to.

He would not learn what Tanngrisnir meant until two months after her death.

Her _Snarler.)_

* * *

Sometimes Derek thinks back to the first day he met Stiles, the first time he heard him, intelligence so evident, so sharp and bright, that it cut right down to the root without even trying.

Sometimes he thinks of the first time he maybe grasped the concept of who Stiles was, staring at him through the cage of a police car. Afraid. Brave. Grimly determined and extraordinarily loyal. He'd disliked Derek with a vengeance, then, had no reason not to. But the look in his eyes had changed when Derek had laid out the dangers, because he was _listening,_ willing to drink in the knowledge and run with it if he had to, if it was honest.

For his brother, for his best friend, he'd have done anything, and Derek had probably meant very little in the scheme of that. Devotion has nothing on Stiles.

And _that's_ who Stiles is. It's not all of it, but it's a pretty big part.

And now they belong to each other. They belong to each other and Derek has no doubt Stiles loves him. Derek wonders, often, how he can have this, after _everything_ he's done.

"Don't brood," Stiles will say, knocking his knuckles against the furrow in Derek's brows. "Your face will get stuck that way, you know?"

"I don't deserve you," Derek will tell him, rough and uneasy, drowning in the turmoil of his thoughts.

"Oh, Der," Stiles will smile, rays of liquid gold peaking through rain-clouds, the promise of something beautiful on the horizon. "You deserve _everything,_ you idiot."

* * *

They go to Scott's next.

This life they live, it's a dangerous one, there's no denying that, and it's ingrained certain instincts in them. _Hypervigilance,_ always, vigilant. Not the healthiest mindset, but a hard one to shake once it's sunk its' teeth into you.

So when Derek hears pandemonium from the McCall house as they pull up, he flashes his eyes at Stiles and leaps from the jeep. Stiles understands perfectly and is right behind him with his baseball bat the second he manages to park the car. They throw themselves through Scott's door with protective intent and adrenaline surging through their veins, dripping from their suddenly shallowed breaths.

"Crap, wait!" Scott shouts.

"Don't let that little fucker get out!" Isaac cries plaintively.

Some tiny blur dives past them and it is something purely animal, Alphan, _Pack,_ that has Derek lunging after it. He chases the thing down two blocks and when he captures it—

He comes face to face with a kitten. A very _furious_ kitten. She yowls and hisses vehemently, boxing her needly-clawed paws in the air as he holds her up by the scruff of her neck. _"What,"_ Derek says, paper flat, flummoxed beyond logic.

There's a metallic thud and a strangled snicker behind him. Derek casts a glare over his shoulder. Stiles is stood in the middle of the road, his bat clattered uselessly at his feet, startled-wide eyes explosive with laughter, hands clapped over his mouth. A little chirp hiccups past his fingers.

Derek turns back to the kitten, who's still a struggling ball of fur and futile rage that's latched onto his arm now, and is scraping at his skin for all she's worth. Derek shakes her a little, knocking her back down, and she bears her teeth balefully before roaring up to another hiss.

Cats are an alien species to him, he's never had to deal with them before. What are you supposed to _do_ with one?... Had he hurt it, maybe? And how was he supposed to check without enraging it further? Gods help him, why is this an issue he has to deal with in the first place?

Stiles, unable to suppress it any longer, erupts, mirth liberated in ringing peals. "Oh my God," he gasps, before skittering over and falling to his knees against Derek's side. "Oh, give her here." Derek barely needs the excuse to foist the wild-bright thing off, perturbed. Stiles' burbling chuckles bubble down to something softer, cotton candied coo, "Aw, poor baby. Did big bad wolf scare you? Shh, it's okay, it's okay."

Miraculously, the kitten goes from tantrum to mild indignance in Stiles' arms; just huffs in the most unimpressed manner possible and settles. "There you are," Stiles says, cradling her close to his chest, "there."

For one impossible moment that is more fear-inducing than Derek will ever admit, he sees a child in the kitten's place, curled up in a crib of limbs and warmth, being gentled and soothed. His heartbeat _skips._ He blinks, once, twice, and reality reasserts itself.

Stiles cuts a side-long smirk his way when Derek looks back up at him. "You were totally freaking out, huh?"

Derek swallows thickly and rasps, "Yeah."

Stiles' grin is all sunburst and iridescent shimmer flashing against the snow beautiful. Wonderous. Probably still laughing at him.

And it shakes him through, damn through, because Derek will _never_ stop falling in love with this kid, will he?

* * *

"I thought she would be the perfect gift," Scott's Abuela says, when the kitten's been safely returned to the ribbon-topped cat-carrier she brought it in. She says it remorsefully, racked between disappointment in the result of her thoughtfulness and helpless amusement at the ridiculousness that's transpired because of it. 

"You've been wanting a cat for _ages,_ hijito, and you've been doing so well at school and with your job. Your Mama finally agreed, you know?" She leans in conspiratorially, eyes agleam, "How long have I been asking her, eh? Years, hijito." She tuts, shaking her head sorrowfully, "Now this."

Scott winces and Derek suspects the kitten _would've_ been the perfect gift. The Christmas before last.

"There's an SPCA a few miles out," Chris says diplomatically, at the same time his daughter says, "What if _I_ took her?"

Chris looks at her like she's gone insane and, hold on, wait a minute, because he absolutely did not sign up for this.

"That way Scott could visit her," Allison continues, getting fired-up, "and we could train her out of, um," she rotates her wrist in an ambiguous, impatient gesture, "you know."

"Her completely irrational hatred toward a person who's done absolutely nothing to warrant any negativity from her whatsoever?" Stiles says, wryly. Not even disguising his wryness. Scott's Abuela raises her eyebrows like she senses there's a piece of the puzzle here that she's missing, and Scott elbows Stiles in the side, hard. Stiles smiles the most innocent smile he's capable of smiling, which fools exactly no one in this room because everyone present is too familiar with him.

"Allison," Chris cuts in. Trying to regain the initiative, probably.

"What's her name?" Allison asks Scott with a subtle sort of urgency. Scott's eyes go wide, completely unprepared to answer that. Chris opens his mouth. Allison's expression suggests Scott _hurry the fuck up._ Stiles pinches Scott right beneath the ribs, where he's soft and vulnerable.

"Christmas," Scott squeaks.

"Christmas," Allison grins, adoration oozing from her, thick and pleased. The thing glittering in her eyes when she turns to her Dad is a very close cousin of triumph; "Her name is Christmas," she says, like that settles any argument he may have had, "isn't that a great name?"

Chris' eyes narrow for a moment, some silent, teeth-gritted communication passing between him and Allison before he directs his most charming fatherly smile at the rest of the table. This smile fools exactly no one but Scott's Abuela, who merely blinks, because everyone except her is too familiar with him. "It's a _wonderful_ name," he gushes, like he means it with his whole being.

"Laying it on a little thick, there, Mister Argent," Isaac says, somewhere between rebellious sarcasm and faint terror.

Scott facepalms. Allison ducks her head and bites her lips and doesn't quite manage to hide the way her shoulders shake with laughter. Scott's Abuela seems to be smirking and not-so-discreetly giving Isaac the last cookie.

Stiles theatrically wipes away an invisible tear and sniffles to Derek, "Aw, man. They grow up so fast."

Derek rolls his eyes, but he budges up closer to Isaac because he recognizes how hard it can be to joke like that sometimes, even casually, even in a room full of people, especially at the expense of a man who could kill you and would if you gave him the right excuse. Stiles catches the movement and presses his lips together in a way that makes his cheeks dimple, in a way that makes Derek think Stiles would be kissing him silly right now if he could get away with it, and will be kissing him silly the second they lose their audience.

Melissa claps her hands together, "Alright, so Christmas is going home with you guys?"

"Yes," Allison says, very firmly.

"Awesome," Scott says, sounding awestruck.

"Mm," Chris says, sounding like he wants very badly to shoot something.

"Great! Now that that's settled, we can try to, uh," she glances over at the tree, which has been fairly mangled by the kitten's attempt to run away from werewolves. The presents below it don't look much better, to be honest. Derek wonders if any of the gifts that were obviously trampled on will be broken when they come free of their wrappings. Melissa clears her throat, "Let's get to it," she says, with all the grim determination of a General leading an army into battle.

They get to it.

(It takes them thirty minutes, overall, to clean up enough for Melissa to feel comfortable with filming all the gift opening business, and about ten more for Allison to set Christmas up in the bathroom so that she's not stuck helplessly in the cat-carrier as they do it.

Scott's Abuela starts gushing, in spanish, about how _that one will be a splendid wife one day, **and** she'll make pretty great-grandbabies._ Scott blushes an atrocious shade, but grins like he's more endeared by his Abuela's commentary than anything. Allison, who does not know spanish, smiles, bemused and convivial, at their antics.

Stiles, who also does not know spanish, asks Derek what Scott and his Abuela are gossipping about. Derek tells him. Isaac, overhearing, chokes on startled laughter, and Stiles, ever the agent of chaos, texts Allison, who looks steeped in fresh cherry juice when she next checks her phone.

And then a smile casts over her face, slow and inexorable and lovely.

In that moment, Derek forgets, for a second, what her last name is. In that moment, she looks nothing like her Aunt, she looks nothing like the blood running through her veins, and Derek's wolf sings _Pack_ in a deafening chorale.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _xmas kitty_ 🎄🎄🎄


	9. Merry Christmas To All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo many presents. All the presents, lol, hope you enjoy!!! 🎁🎁🎁

Socks. They're a tradition amongst the McCalls, apparently.

Scott had given Erica black cotton ones hemmed with white lace, as well as fashionable boots that Derek suspects Lydia and/or Allison helped him pick out. He gets for Stiles ridiculous ones, all Holiday themed and satirical - as satirical as a pair of socks are capable of being, anyway - that make Stiles crack up and lose every thread of reason as he scrambles to strip his feet and put them on. Hidden within Stiles' socks are a letter and a singular yellow lego. This, also, is a tradition, precious and beloved, that turns Stiles' expression to sunlight and stardust upon discovering it.

"Oof," Scott says, as Stiles jumps him with a rib-creaking hug before, strangled and happy beneath a tangle of gangly limbs, "I love you, too, bro."

Allison receives knee-high fuzzy maroon socks peppered with snowflakes, and a vintage camera that makes her nearly cry as she showers kisses all over Scott's face and thanks him profusely. Chris, whose expression says he hadn't expected to be included, obtains hiking socks and gun-cleaning equipment, which makes him snort. 

To Melissa, Scott grants a ten-pack of festive ankle-socks and a llama mug, where his Abuela is offered reindeer stockings and a gaudy bracelet (that fits in perfectly with all her other jewellery). Their appreciation comes in the form of suffocating hugs that somehow make their arms look like the most comfortable places to be, and cheek-pinching that defies the laws of elasticity in Scott's face.

Isaac gets soft, woolly Van Gogh socks and a scarf to match; his charmed surprise overwhelms him close to tears, but he sniffles them back, blinks red-rimmed eyes, and murmurs gratitude suffused with awfully hidden pleasure as he bumps their shoulders together.

Derek's socks are cozy, twilight things paired with two tickets to Prelude to a Kiss, which is being performed in a theatre one county over next Tuesday, upon which is a sticky note that suggests Stiles for his plus-one. Derek clears his throat roughly and steals a fleeting side-hug before drawing swiftly away. 

"Thanks," he says, at length.

Scott beams at him incandescently, and Derek's mildly relieved that, as wolves, scent can bridge the gaps of sentiment left unspoken.

Perhaps time and familiarity can, too, because Stiles is looking at him with such tenderness that Derek has to say, "Shut up," in order not to be unmoored by it. 

Stiles rolls his eyes, presses a deliberate kiss between Derek's brows, and quietly but firmly informs him, "I didn't say anything, Der, but—Never. Never ever."

"Gross," Isaac says.

To which, of course, Allison smacks an over-the-top kiss on Scott's forehead and Scott, stars in his eyes, grinning like a dope, nudges one onto the tip of her nose.

"Oh my God, you're all disgusting and I wish I could hate you," Isaac groans, falling to the side to smother his face against the couch's arm. They all, in their own ways, laugh at him.

Scott's Abuela spreads around cotton white socks and mason jars full of homemade, home-grown tea leaves. Stiles gets her special cinnamon blend, which is, apparently, his favourite. Melissa, on the other hand, has gotten everyone baggies of Christmas Special socks and small bouquets of flowers.

Needless to say, there is an _abundance_ of socks when all is said and done. Nobody really minds.

(There are two presents set aside for Scott's father but, to Derek's knowledge, he never comes to accept them, and he never returns the favour. 

Derek's certain he never even calls, but Stiles has told him they're used to it, that they've long-since given up hoping for anything from that man. And the number of people Derek wishes he could throttle but won't increases, the number of people Derek can only be perplexed by, rejecting the grace of souls they'd be outrageously lucky to have in their lives, increases.)

Everything gifted from Allison is personalized and sensible; fancy yarn and knitting supplies for Isaac, a silver bullet (which seems to be an uproarious inside joke) and new cleats for Scott, gift cards for Scott's Abuela and his Mom, pencils and a sketchbook for Stiles, and Christmas scented candles and soaps for Derek. Whatever she'd gotten for her Father she'd given him already, apparently, and they both seem in agreement about not speaking of it just now.

Chris, seeming vaguely disgruntled to be involved, for all his scent seeps wary contentment, offers up Christmas cards to all, each with an anecdote he'd written and fifty dollars inside. It's... strange. Beyond strange. Getting something like this from Chris Argent. But nice?

Tentatively, Derek's sticking with that descriptive. _Nice._

Isaac's present for Allison is the same as his for Erica, only with slightly different colours and modesty to contrast. Derek remembers the two girls spending an hour one night going through outfits over a Skype call with Lydia, joking about how many articles of clothing they'd lost to the nature of their lives, half-kiddingly lamenting that they had nothing matching to wear together. 

It'd taken therapy and gruelling conversations and many intense sparring sessions for them to map each other out, the regal control that could arch into homicidal fury or dip into hopeless romantic bubbly of one versus the insecure whirlwind finally broiling into confidence and powerhouse awakening of the other. Even Lydia, who was closer to Stiles and Scott at the end of the day, could not truly touch the sisterhood they'd established.

Thus it's no surprise that Allison, who's already overjoyed with her gift, becomes even more dazzled and giddy when Stiles shows her clips of Erica opening what amounts to its' twin. Isaac is nearly bowled over by the squealing hug she launches at him, but he seems infinitely pleased regardless.

Derek and Stiles both get cozy, hand-knitted blankets, Scott a hand-knitted beanie and mittens, Melissa a crocheted capelet poncho, Scott's Abuela a hand-knitted purse, and Chris a hand-knitted scarf with wolves dancing across its' length like a dare. Or maybe it would've been a dare if it weren't so godsdamned beautiful and well-done, the amount of time and effort and thought put into it all so obvious.

"Oh, God," Stiles says, when all of Derek's offerings have been observed, "we're turning into a gang."

"What?" Scott asks, the word half lost in a laugh, startled.

Stiles flaps his hands at all the leather jackets that have unfurled from their artfully swathed boxes. Each one tailored and chosen with its' new owner in mind. Isaac and Allison are already trying theirs on; Chris seems nonplussed by the holster he'd gotten instead, him, Melissa, and Scott's Abuela the only ones with boons differing from the others. Stiles makes inarticulate noises that don't prove his point, and everyone ignores him rather cheerfully.

He pouts and glares at Derek, "I can't tell if this is you being funny or if this is you being sweet."

Derek smirks faintly, leans in flirt-close to whisper against his lover's ear—not quiet enough to be a secret, he wants them to know, he's wanted them to know ever since he decided what he was doing for them for Christmas. And this, honestly, is the only way he knows how to say it. "Did I ever tell you where mine came from?"

Stiles steadies a hand on Derek's chest, to feel his heartbeat, maybe. Or simply to touch him. He shakes his head carefully, letting Derek's lips graze the shell of his ear with a slight shiver.

"My Dad gave it to Laura," Derek murmurs, and the ache wells up, but it doesn't swallow him. This time, it doesn't swallow him. "And Laura gave it to me. And now..."

"Yeah," Stiles says roughly, curling his fingers into Derek's shirt as an arm snakes its' way around the back of his neck clutchingly. "Yeah, okay. We're the leather jacket gang, I can dig it."

Derek lets his head drop and snorts into Stiles' shoulder despite himself. He can't see him, but he knows, he _knows_ Stiles is smiling, too.

They stay curled into each other like that until Derek feels recovered enough to draw away, return to the festivities with all the weight of his ghosts. There, always there, but no longer crushing him.

Scott and Isaac, mercifully, pay more mind to the rest of their spoils than to him. Allison, who couldn't overhear, simply dons her new plum jacket with grace and grins a wolvish grin, "They're awesome, Der."

It's the first time she's ever called him that, and there's a gleeful howling in his chest, a terrible happiness to be here and alive in this moment that he cannot deny. He's claimed her as Pack, now, hasn't he? More fully than ever before. She is theirs. An Argent among the wolves.

He can't help but feel viciously satisfied, as if this, in its' own way, is another vengeance taken, another victory won.

"It looks good on you," Stiles says, a solemnity in his words that echoes the turn of Derek's thoughts. Derek takes Stiles' hand in his, squeezes, gratitude for voicing what Derek couldn't sheltered between their interwoven palms, and Stiles ducks a quick kiss onto Derek's shoulder.

"It does, doesn't it?" Allison agrees cheerfully, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a decidedly Lydia-esque manner. Stiles chuckles softly before tossing another gift her way and taking up his phone again for further recording.

He doesn't let go of Derek's hand. Derek is pitifully grateful.

Boyd's woodworking skills come out in full force, from the new bookshelf with triskele engravings Derek had gotten last night to the whole, delicately crafted chess set designed for Stiles. Isaac gets a knitting loom, Allison and Chris beautiful 100 round heirloom ammo boxes, Scott meticulously carved waxing moons and constellations braided into leather bracelets, Melissa a pocket mirror and hair forks, and Scott's Abuela a fierce lioness statue.

When Derek and Stiles finally get around to opening what Erica had given them, Derek's surprised to find three eclectic vinyl records for his as of yet unused record player along with a note that says: _Trust me. You'll like them._ Where Stiles gets a new iPod with an entire library of music and audiobooks already installed. Isaac's gift is similarly music-themed, a vintage tape player inside a shoebox full of cassette tapes. Allison is granted a magnificently difficult jigsaw puzzle, which seems to entertain her immensely, and Scott a new pair of sound-cancelling headphones and a sleek packet of constellation-themed decals. 

Chris, whether out of some petty mischief or some deeper meaning, is treated to a book titled _Ho-Ho-Homicide,_ while Melissa becomes the happy new owner of several pairs of snowflake and lunar earrings.

Scott's Abuela is given a 3D pop-up card, a phone number, and a promise to do better next year when they're less like strangers. She thinks it's _adorable_ and wants to meet this girl right away, wondering why her hijito never told her his friends were such angels.

From Stiles to Scott are new slides for the planetarium projector that Stiles and his Mom got Scott years and years ago, as well as a red lego. More traditions, Derek takes it, and decides not to question something that makes his lover so deliriously joyed, especially when it inspires the same in one of his Betas.

To Isaac and Allison, both, he offers paintings. Of wolves and starlit play through the woods, all deep dark lovely for the former, and of Allison standing tall and strong as she knocks an arrow in detailed watercolour for the latter. The frames are cherry and mahogany, etched with flowers and gilded with gold. Allison and Isaac _cherish_ them.

Chris receives a _text,_ which might seem minimal if you weren't aware of the ridiculously informative contents of said correspondence. Chris looks both extremely startled and enormously gratified, however bemused he is to have gotten anything at all, let alone an in with Stiles' information network and access to an updated, more user-friendly bestiary.

Melissa, Derek knows, has the next week and a half off with pay because Stiles pulled some strings, but there's also a hand-drawn Christmas card and a few choice books for her under the tree. There are seeds for Scott's Abuela's garden as well, and candles from a special little shop Stiles'd had to go all the way to Sacramento to get. Melissa and Scott's Abuela do much the same with Stiles as they had to Scott, their appreciation all hug attacks and stretching cheeks. Stiles endures with barely restrained sarcasm and eye-rolling that's belied by his delighted expression.

He returns to Derek, scent thick with Pack and pleasure, sunshine pouring out of his eyes, spilling through his smile, and Derek can't help but kiss him.

Scott's Abuela, who hadn't known (and had somehow missed it throughout the afternoon), cries in disbelief, _"You're_ Stiles' young man?"

Which takes Derek sharply back to every game of bridge played by a gaggle of gossipy old dames. Whatever look Stiles sees dash across his face, then, makes him throw his head back with laughter. Belly-deep and full-body, a stunning kind of thing that elicits butterflies and glittering bursts of love that stick in Derek's throat like honeyed daybreak.

"Yes," Derek murmurs, dizzy. "Yes, I am."

To which Stiles' laughter eases into breath, into grin, into so much pride and wonder Derek can hardly believe it's all directed at him.

(Melissa didn't know what to expect upon inviting Stiles and Derek Hale - yes, their Alpha, but also a man _six years their senior_ \- into her home on Christmas day. Certainly not one of the healthiest, most down to earth relationships she's witnessed in her life. Certainly not Scott and Allison and Isaac interacting with them as they would _family._

Or, maybe something deeper than family. Maybe what she's just seen is a glimpse at what Pack means, the smallest sliver of it.

Unexpectedly, something within her surges alive with enough yearning to make her breathless. A childish, desperate voice yelling out, _I want that, too.)_


	10. Every Creature Was Stirring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gratuitous Boyd Family, because because because

Stiles and Derek exchange a glance outside of Boyd's Nan's door. It sounds like chaos in there. Like _overwhelming_ chaos.

Derek's suddenly reminded of the old fairy tales Laura used to love so, the ones that made it seem as if there were a threshold of normalcy. As soon as you were outside of the castle or in the woods or anywhere _beyond_ that threshold, suddenly there be monsters and witches and giants and absurdities beyond compare. He's got this insane feeling that this is the threshold, that as soon as they knock to be let in, magic will impose itself upon them—explosively.

Which is unforgivably unfair, coming from a werewolf.

"You gonna be okay?" Stiles asks. Probably more of the company and the enormity of it than anything else.

Derek shrugs, nods, screws his valour to the sticking place and knocks on the godsdamned door. He's been working on getting better with crowds lately, anyway.

It's an unfamiliar woman who receives them. She is cheerfully aglow despite being exertion flushed and in harried disarray. There's a toddler hiked up her swollen belly and a little boy tugging at her hem for another candy-cane because, "It's not fair, Jamella got to have _five,_ how come I only get one? Mama? Mama? _Mom."_

"Because I don't want you to have a tummy-ache tomorrow, honey. Don't you want to save your appetite for dinner?" The child's expression makes it very plain he doesn't care, and his Mother narrows her eyes thoughtfully before tacking on, "Or for the chocolate Nana probably snuck in your stocking?"

The boy brightens, and with the least amount of subtlety possible, burrows back through the masses, intent on aforementioned treats. Derek is left at a bit of a loss. Stiles snorts beside him.

"I hid it," she tells them conspiratorially, of her child's stocking, "if he actually finds it, he'll _deserve_ that candy. Y'all are Boyd's friends, right? You're the last to show up," and then, without even waiting for a response: _"Boyd!"_

The loud noise excites the toddler, who begins slapping at her face, giggle-babbling. The Mother coos, bops him, and turns on her heel to follow after her wayward son just as Boyd gets to the entryway.

"Dude," Stiles says, all a-wonder. "I know you said it'd be crazy, but." From the outside looking in, it's as if Boyd's Nan's has become the central chamber of a hive, swarming thick with people busying themselves with hitherto undiscovered activity. _"Dude."_

Boyd smiles wryly as he invites them inside. "Dinner's in an hour," he says. He'd assured them yesterday that it got calmer after everyone was too full to move, which is part of the reason they'd saved the Boyds' for last. That, and Stiles had been bribed by Boyd's Nan's willingness to share some choice recipes if he helped out in the kitchen at the last minute—because, according to her, there was _always_ a culinary disaster at the last minute.

Her assumption is proved correct when one of the many Aunts actually bursts into tears because the stuffing she brought spontaneously grew mould, and a young couple with newborn twins and racoon-ish eyes are begging after the stove to finish what they hadn't been able to at home. 

Boyd's Nan watches on with barely veiled amusement; she always suggests that they let her cater the whole event _("I've only been cooking for a family of eleven most of my life.")_ but they always deny her on the supposition that she's a little old lady and they don't want her to _tax_ herself. All of this Derek only knows because Stiles invited Boyd's Nan to bridge once and she never stopped coming. Complaining (read: gloating) about her patronizing - because they love her entirely too much, or else she'd never let them get away with it - hilarious, accomplished children is her favourite pastime.

She is no less amused by Stiles brusquely taking charge with all the aplomb of a schoolmarm with years of experience. Despite all his awkward limbs and his flailing and the way his focus can go from veering all directions to so tunnelled everything else becomes white-noise—he has a grace about him when it comes to things like this. To _people._

The couple and the middle-aged woman are helpless to resist him, and don't even realize he's taken control until they're following his marching orders like desperate baby ducklings.

He doesn't leave Derek stranded, however, having commanded Boyd to keep vigilant company and to "haul your Alpha's ass outside the second he starts smelling even an _iota_ too stressed, got it?"

To which Boyd had dryly responded, "Yes, Mom," because the whole Pack has made a thing of it, calling Stiles that. Derek can't exactly blame them.

Stiles had glared. Boyd had blinked with exaggerated slowness. Stiles had thrown his hands up and given up on him, offering Derek a squeezing hug and a kiss on the cheek before hustling into the fray.

Derek and Boyd share many things; they are, both of them, taciturn, deadpan, and occasional companions in silent, solicitous humour when all that is wrong with the world allows itself to be ravelled in the silliness of their Pack. But Boyd can be surrounded by this many people, now that he is anchored and in control, and be perfectly fine. Adept. 

Derek can't.

He's grateful that, somehow, the down-to-earth, hazardous, overcrowded anarchy does not trigger any memories of life before the fire. Not anymore than usual in passing, anyway.

Still, sound sharpens and distorts, scents cling and linger and congeal sickly together. Too much. He has to shove his hands into his pockets to keep claws from coming into play. _This is not dangerous,_ he tells himself, _no one here is dangerous. We're not in danger. They're not trying to mask wolfsbane. It's fine._

"Need air?" Boyd asks.

Derek breathes. "Ground," he amends, because he's getting better at this, he _is._ If it gets any worse he'll take a moment, but he's not at critical yet and if he can just find something to keep him calm maybe he won't get there.

Boyd, understanding immediately, puts a hand on his arm, rubs a cheek on his shoulder, and then tugs him firmly toward the Christmas tree, where it's mostly calmer kids and an ancient man in a wheelchair with an electric-shock afro and a braided beard pooling into his lap.

Derek breathes.

Boyd shoves him onto the floor and tosses a book at him with the expectance that he will catch it. He does. "Read," Boyd demands of him, not unkindly.

Derek reads.

And it doesn't matter if less than half the kids listen, doesn't matter that the rest are being rowdy and loud, doesn't matter that he's interrupted every other passage by them, and it doesn't matter that the self-proclaimed Greatest of the Great Grandfathers is keeping a running commentary. Derek has the scents of all his packmates shrouding him, has an objective to keep him focused, and Boyd standing sentinel over his shoulder. Boyd, who lends his touch or his ability to corral their audience if need be.

It helps that Derek can pick Stiles' voice and heartbeat out of the tangle of _everyone,_ a constant reassurance at the edge of his awareness. It helps, too, that some of the little ones are genuinely invested, that he's able to bring them any type of enjoyment.

So Derek breathes and breathes and _reads._ And he thinks he'll make it.

(Boyd, behind him, just out of sight, grins like victory.)

* * *

Christmas' at the Hales were never very calm, but there was something checked about them.

Mostly because Christmas wasn't the most excitement they found in their year. For when full moons and new moons are celebrated every month, and on every third month there are gatherings of one kind or another - not even accounting for all the other holidays their family took up - Christmas just didn't seem all that _grand._

They would put out an altar in the Preserve, upon which they'd leave an offering and a prayer for the twelve days leading up to the celebration. It was a ritual of smiling solemnity, meant to be as meditative as it was sincerely joyful. _"Our wood be praised,"_ Aunt Teagan would say, _"its' patience be honoured. And when the sun shines long again, may its life be vibrantly returned."_

Because the Preserve was always, always theirs, and for its sake winter could never be ignored. Some were gardeners, some were guards, all were keepers.

The packmates who were in town rather than homebound attended the day, some of the more distant kind were temporarily annexed, and they held a bonfire next to their altar, deep in the slumbering, dormant forests that bordered Beacon Hills. 

They danced and they sang and they prayed. They shifted, frolicked, and howled gayly at the moon. Unwanted fruit cakes, honey, and shinies for the Fae, whatever could be freshly hunted and repurposed bones or furs for the Gallows God and his Riders, all delivered to the altar amidst mad laughter or buoyed gravity as they played the night away.

The longest night of the year could make any werewolf, no matter how light the moon was in the twilit sky, feel indestructible, or intoxicated, or _free._ And they were. Together, parading through land that'd had roots in their blood for _millenia,_ stomping across ancestors' faded treads with all the Gods watching over them, the raw thrill of it all bounding from the depths of their lungs to the tips of their tongues.

They _were._

* * *

"Hey, big guy," Stiles swoops in during an appropriate interval. He smells of meat juices and pomegranate and flour combed through his usual sticky mango spices, and he smiles a summer to melt all the snow. "You good?"

Derek hums affirmatively, smooths a hand across the crest of his cheek and keeps it there when Stiles leans into the touch with a bright sound.

"Hey! Don't distract him, poopyhead!" one of the children who actually seems intent on hearing out the story says. "Yeah!" calls another, and soon they've all joined in, impatient and needling.

Derek turns to them with a sardonically slanted brow and mimes closing the book without marking his place. There is an objecting outcry of horror. Derek pauses the movement, glowers. They murmur and cease and are all of a sudden much more agreeable.

Stiles hides a giggle into the knit of his palm, the gold in his eyes melting and swirling with the richest honey. "Sourwolf," he chides, all fondness. "Don't be a tease."

Derek clicks his teeth at him, both because he can and because he knows it'll just make Stiles laugh and swat at him. He doesn't resume reading until his lover is ensconced safely at his side, head under Derek's chin, knees tucked into his lap.

Some of the pups titter about cooties, but they get over themselves fairly quickly, what with Stiles taking over doing the voices and making faces whenever a particular line calls for it. His commentary joined in with Boyd Sr's soon turns the reading into more of a conversation, and suddenly all of the children want to be involved, and at least a third of the adults as well.

Derek doesn't begrudge them, and he thinks this turn of events shouldn't surprise him, but he still hides in Stiles' shoulder when he can get away with it, drinking in his scent and soaking up his presence.

Boyd has moved to be closer to them, keeping contact with at least Derek at all times—knuckles to knees, elbows to elbows, chin occasionally digging into shoulder in silent witty rejoinder or redress.

_We're here. You're safe. Keep breathing._

* * *

Dinner is all excitement, barely refraining itself from being rebranded a food-fight or a merry riot.

Stiles, of course, gets immediately caught up in the tragedy of a little girl who's only recently been disillusioned on the reality of Santa Claus. There are wagers made on her faith, on Derek and Stiles, on how many words Boyd will speak throughout the night, on whether someone will end up in tears ere morning, on the crier and nature of those tears, and on the number of leftovers to remain by the end of it.

Several try goading Boyd into responses less laconic, and some of their ploys might've even worked, except he clearly recognises their schemes and finds pure hilarity in not satisfying them. If there's anything Boyd and his Nan have in common it's their sense of humour, which is compatible enough with Derek's that he finds himself mildly distracted from his ill-conceived panic by their contrived diversions.

Stiles holds his hand. Boyd sits close enough to knock knees and elbows with him. The other Boyds thronging the table get as many ridiculous answers to their questions as possible, and nobody wins any bets concerning Vernon's friends except his Nan, which is just as well.

When things are calming down, one Uncle disappears away, a bag full of empty tin cans on his arm, and another with him with the assurances that they'll return in a few hours.

Stiles speaks in hushed tones with the girl, Aaliyah; a conversation that might've once been about the Spirit of Christmas™ but has since meandered into the Origins of the Jolliest Cryptid™. Something in Derek fizzes, soda-sweet, to hear his lover whisper about Odin with dancing gestures and flashing eyes and his sharp, colourful, whirling mind—even if the context is a little out of order.

Aaliyah's obviously fascinated, but still vaguely depressed about the whole thing, until there are faintly metallic clomping sounds ringing out across the roof.

Boyd lofts a wry smile at Stiles' surprise and confusion, while Aaliyah and all the other children are suddenly rapt. 

Derek's thankful that he, at least, listened when Boyd was explaining _his_ family's traditions, or else he would be shifted by now, searching for the threat with a snarling growl. As it is, he focuses his hearing on the heartbeats around the house, and the two outside of it that must belong to the Uncles who'd taken leave earlier.

Stiles turns a furrowed expression from Derek to Boyd, who only says, "It's fine."

The door bursts open.

Stiles barely refrains from jumping out of his skin, and Derek squeezes his hand in reassurance.

"Ho, ho, ho," the now costumed Uncle hollers over the din, "Merry Christmas!"

He's wearing red wool trimmed with ivory fur and a very realistic snowy beard, with small round spectacles perched on his nose and a sack of presents hefted over his shoulder. At the same time it clicks for Stiles, it clicks for the little girl, too, who sees every little face light up with joyful surprise which vibrates through their whole bodies until they're capering over in a cavalcade of glad and earnest welcome. She'd taken note of her Uncles leaving, and she takes note of their absence, now, just as she captures every happiness washing over the room.

"I get it," she says, to herself as much as Stiles. "It's not about whether or not Santa Claus is real, because _this_ is." As sure as she sounds of her revelation, she still looks up to Stiles with insecurity, "Right?"

Stiles grins down at her, inordinately proud, _"Exactly_ right."

None of this gets Derek and Boyd out of being scolded for not making sure Stiles fully knew what was up, but it does keep him in good humour while he's scolding, which is probably more than they could ask for.

* * *

They venture out onto the backyard veranda when the party finally winds down enough to make escape feasible.

Inside, children's eyes have gone sleep-hooded, and parents' jaws have gotten yawn-stretched; music still dances through the atmosphere, and beloved classics yet traipse across their TV as those able begin to pick up the shredded gift-wrapper debris and tuck in whoever slumber has already befallen.

Stiles pulls his phone out of his pocket with a flourish and a grin. Boyd rolls his eyes at him, but obligingly selects a present to open.

"Ready for your close-up?"

"Sure. I always knew I was going to be famous someday—wasn't expecting my success to be kickstarted by a Hallmark movie but," Boyd shrugs.

Stiles throws a ribbon-flower at him, "Hush, puppy."

Boyd gives him a very dead stare, "If you're still hungry, Stiles, I pity Derek for having to put up with such an _incredible_ appetite. And you really need to learn how to say please."

"Oh, fuck you," Stiles laughs. "Open your freaking presents, you ass hole."

Boyd mocks a bow first, just to be contrary, and now Stiles is the one left rolling his eyes. Derek heaves a sigh at both of them and is rewarded with a sunny smile and a set of mischief-twinkling eyes.

"Insufferable," he informs them. "You're both insufferable."

"Aw," Stiles coos, "you love it. Don't even lie."

Derek hums. Leans in for a kiss that probably just proves Stiles' point. Oh, well.

Erica's gift for Boyd is a custom tool belt with music-notes and wolves haphazard-crookedly embroidered on. The slow curl of Boyd's lips is slight and soft and the glut of hopeless romance, his fingers tender as they trace every inch of thoughtful effort. "It's amazing," he murmurs, voice thick with adoration, toward Stiles' dutifully recording phone. "Thank you, Erica."

The effect is made that much more profound by Boyd's usual lack of sentiment, his wonted temper so dry and grave that witnessing anything else becomes an honour, a gift in and of itself.

Stiles' eyes sparkle, his scent swelling as he sniffles, caught up in the distilled emotion—even Derek can't help but smile.

Allison's present coincides with Erica's, being a bunch of new tools he can put _in_ the tool belt. Boyd is all gratitude, eyes positively gleaming with ideas for projects he can undertake with these novelties.

Scott, unsurprisingly, has imparted _socks_ upon Boyd. They're very snug looking, with an easy, earthy design. With them comes a package of chocolate and peppermint macarons nestled in a mound of little christmas-themed candies that leave them all marvelling, since not one of them know where he could have gotten them and they're all absolutely positive he couldn't have made them himself.

"He burns water," Stiles reminds them. _"Water._ Who burns water?"

(If Scott were here, he'd exaclaim, _"That was **one** time! And I was **six!"** )_

"They're good," Boyd says, taking a bite of one. "And he remembered that I like mint chocolate."

Stiles makes a face at him, "You do?"

Boyd gives him a glacial blink.

"Yuck."

Boyd smirks.

"You're nasty, your tastebuds are nasty. I hope you know I'm never feeding you anything that's both minty and chocolatey, my Babcia would turn over in her grave."

 _"Derek_ likes mint chocolate," Boyd muses.

"Derek detests strawberries," Stiles parries firmly, "his tastebuds are not to be trusted."

Boyd lofts an expression at Derek that says he's laughing at him. Derek shrugs, because this is something Stiles established a long time ago and he's learned to roll with it.

Isaac's knitted Boyd a charcoal long-sleeve v-neck and two beanies with differing designs, one black with simple gray fixings, the other in blues. Boyd hastily dons the former, thrilled not only with his haul but also with the immediately added warmth.

He has no less hesitation in putting on the leather jacket Derek had gotten him over his hoodie.

"Now all we need are motorcycles," Stiles decides.

Boyd quirks an eyebrow at him. Stiles beams enigmatically and refuses to clarify.

"You look badass," he says instead, with a good deal more gravitas. 

Boyd's face goes soft, eyes crinkling, and he nods his sincere, heartfelt thanks to Derek for the gift. It's unexpectedly easy for Derek to muster a smile in turn.

From Stiles, Boyd receives a painting. A rugged wolf that's depicted so closely between a wood carving and a real animal that it's impossible to distinguish, running against a wintery-fog backdrop, with a carefully elegant inscription below its' paws that reads: _Ceci n’est pas un loup._

Boyd huffs a pleased laugh, and promises to make a better frame for it before he finds the perfect place to hang it. Stiles does a little victory shimmy and bumps shoulders with Derek to share the joy of the moment. Derek snorts and, feeling lighter than he has all day, rakes a hand under Stiles' shirt to dance fingers up his ribs, freezing and ticklish. Stiles yelps and leaps up in shock, his phone barely caught by Boyd when it trips from his fingers.

He doesn't allow himself to wallow in the startlement for long, only a mist-cloud breath or two of blushing anticipation before he sets off running through the snow congested yard. Derek, of course, chases after him.

After all, what other choice is there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tickle fiiiggghhhhttttttt!!! lol


End file.
